Swannanoa, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Swannanoa CDP is a mid-size town in North Carolina, with 6,043 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #143 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 81% of them. The median age here is 32.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in Swannanoa CDP earn a median of $72,978 a year, 7.1% below the national figure of $78,538 and 19% above 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 15.1% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Swannanoa CDP is valued at $270,800, 10.7% below the national figure and 23% above the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $692 a month, 50.8% below the national figure, or roughly $8,304 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 11.4% 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 3.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 80% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. 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.