Carteret ZIP codes — Carteret County, North Carolina

Carteret County is a small city in North Carolina, with 68,652 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates. The median age here is 50.1 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. At this size the Census also publishes one-year estimates; the five-year values used here are steadier and let you compare against smaller neighbours on the same basis.

Households in Carteret County earn a median of $70,235 a year, 10.6% below the national figure of $78,538. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 10% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Carteret County is valued at $304,200, essentially level with the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,062 a month, 24.5% below the national figure, or roughly $12,744 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.1% 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 4.3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 73.5% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

A median age of 50.1 puts Carteret County well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

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.