River Road, NC population, income and ZIP codes

River Road CDP is a small town in North Carolina, with 3,518 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #233 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 70% of them. The median age here is 44.1 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in River Road CDP earn a median of $47,978 a year, 38.9% below the national figure of $78,538 and 22% below the $61,228 median for the 459 North Carolina cities we cover. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. Poverty reaches 21% of residents here, well above the 12.4% national rate, which is the single clearest signal in this dataset that median income here is carried by a narrow band of households.

The typical owner-occupied home in River Road CDP is valued at $187,700, 38.1% below the national figure and 15% below the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $787 a month, 44% below the national figure, or roughly $9,444 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 19.7% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.9×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 68.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.