Wake Forest, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Wake Forest town is a small city in North Carolina, with 51,199 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #22 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 97% of them. The median age here is 38.8 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. 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 Wake Forest town earn a median of $120,777 a year, 53.8% above the national figure of $78,538 and 97% above the $61,228 median for the 459 North Carolina cities we cover. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 2.9% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Wake Forest town is valued at $435,000, 43.4% above the national figure and 98% above the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,458 a month, 3.7% above the national figure, or roughly $17,496 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 14.5% 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 3.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 74.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. 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.