What salary do you need to live in Durham, NC?

What housing costs in Durham

A one-bedroom in Durham rents for a median of $1,317 a month, utilities the tenant pays included; a two-bedroom goes for $1,476 and a three-bedroom for $1,677. Over a full year, the two-bedroom median comes to $17,712.

Buying is the other half of the housing picture: owners put the median home in Durham-Chapel Hill, NC at $396,100. That works out to 4.7× the local median household income of $83,500, a mid-range ratio.

Price levels matter beyond rent. The Bureau of Economic Analysis measures Durham's overall prices at 97.6 on a scale where the nation is 100, which makes a $100,000 salary feel like about $102,488 would elsewhere.

Durham: the pre-tax income for each grade

For two bedrooms, $201,000 is where Durham turns Comfortable. Below that, $100,000 marks the start of Okay and $50,000 the start of Tight; under $50,000 the score reads Stretched. Rent at the Comfortable line is 9% of gross pay.

The Royal grade is within reach at $579,000 a year, where both rent and the median home price look small next to income.

These lines come straight from the calculator's formula: the income is raised until the two-bedroom score crosses each cutoff, then rounded up to the next $1,000.

Durham at four common salaries

On $75,000, a one-bedroom scores 39 and a three-bedroom 35, both Tight; the extra bedrooms cost points but not a grade.

In Durham the table's top salary of $150,000 stops at Okay (57) for two bedrooms; Comfortable starts higher, at $201,000.

Where Durham falls nationally

On price level Durham is 119th of 387 (1 = most expensive); on two-bedroom rent it is 75th, and on median home value 79th. Rent and overall prices don't line up exactly, with prices in the middle half and rent in the most expensive quarter.

Worcester, MA ($1,483) and Amherst Town-Northampton, MA ($1,473) bracket Durham on two-bedroom rent.

Durham in a North Carolina context

Statewide, North Carolina's median two-bedroom rent is $1,164 and its median home value $288,900. Durham's rent is +27% against that, and its home value +37%; the price parity is 97.6 versus 94.3 for the state.

Run North Carolina's statewide medians through the same score and Comfortable begins at $142,000; Durham's line is +42% from that.

Looking for somewhere comparable without leaving North Carolina? Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC, Raleigh-Cary, NC, and Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC have the closest mix of rent and overall prices.

Durham's median income on the scale

The median household in the metro earns $83,500 (ACS 2020-2024). Run through the calculator with two bedrooms, that scores 40, Tight. That falls $117,500 short of the $201,000 Comfortable line, a reminder that the typical household here spends a larger share on housing than the Comfortable band allows. For North Carolina as a whole, the median household income of $72,388 scores 46 against statewide rents. Household income can include more than one earner, so a single salary of the same size goes less far.

Estimates use pre-tax income and public data; they are not financial advice.