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

The cost side of living in Raleigh

Census figures put the median gross rent in the Raleigh-Cary, NC metro at $1,400 for a one-bedroom, $1,549 for a two-bedroom and $1,741 for a three-bedroom. Moving from one to two bedrooms adds $149 a month, and the third bedroom another $192.

Homeowners in Raleigh report a median home value of $418,400. That works out to 4.2× the local median household income of $100,103, a mid-range ratio.

The Regional Price Parity, BEA's index of local prices with the US at 100, is 98.2 here. Below 100 means a paycheck stretches further: $100,000 in Raleigh has the buying power of roughly $101,878 at national average prices.

How much you need to earn in Raleigh

With a two-bedroom at the median rent, the score enters Tight at $53,000, Okay at $107,000 and Comfortable at $215,000 a year before tax. At the Comfortable line, a year of rent takes 9% of income and the median home is 1.9× income.

Reaching Royal takes $623,000 — 2.9× the Comfortable line — because the last points come slowly once rent is already a small share.

Nothing here is a separate rule of thumb; plug any of these incomes into the calculator with two bedrooms and Raleigh shows the matching grade.

Four salaries, three home sizes in Raleigh

Choosing a bigger place in Raleigh at $75,000 trims the score from 37 to 33 without leaving Tight.

None of the four salaries reaches Comfortable for two bedrooms; even $150,000 scores 55, Okay, which fits the $215,000 line above.

Where Raleigh falls nationally

On price level Raleigh is 111th of 387 (1 = most expensive); on two-bedroom rent it is 64th, and on median home value 69th. Rent and overall prices don't line up exactly, with prices in the middle half and rent in the top quarter.

For a sense of scale, the metros just above and below it on two-bedroom rent are Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI ($1,553) and Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT ($1,542).

Raleigh in a North Carolina context

Compared with North Carolina as a whole, two-bedroom rent in Raleigh is 33% higher ($1,549 vs. $1,164) and the median home is 45% higher ($418,400 vs. $288,900).

The North Carolina figure for the Comfortable line, using state medians, is $142,000 against $215,000 for Raleigh.

Within North Carolina, the metros closest to Raleigh on rent and overall prices are Durham-Chapel Hill, NC, Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC, and Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC. Their Comfortable lines for two bedrooms sit at $201,000, $187,000, and $184,000.

Raleigh's median income on the scale

A household at the Raleigh median income of $100,103 would see a two-bedroom score of 43 — Tight — with rent at 19% of income. That falls $114,897 short of the $215,000 Comfortable line, a reminder that the typical household here spends a larger share on housing than the Comfortable band allows. Statewide, the North Carolina median household ($72,388) grades Okay on the state's own medians. A household figure may pool several earners, unlike a single salary.

Treat every number here as a pre-tax, public-data estimate rather than financial advice.