Rental market · Rockingham, NC · Incorporated city
Rockingham, NC: average rent, home values, and rental yield
South Atlantic · Population 8,967
DatasetCity Market Score, model balanced4,812 of 5,233 tracked U.S. markets rankedgenerated 2026-10-06Latest source releases: Zillow ZHVI/ZORI 2026-08 · Census ACS 5-yr 2024 · Census PEP 2025 · Census BPS 2025 · BLS LAUS 2025 · Redfin 2026-05 · FBI CDE 2025How this is built
C50.2
#1,931 of 4,812 ranked markets
Overall Score 50.2 · stronger than 60% of ranked markets
Confidence 73/100 · 0 of 13 factors imputed, 3 dropped
On the ranked lists: one of 684 markets under $200k · one of 1,079 most stable markets. List pages show the top 100.
Grade C: the biggest single drag is Growth, 36.1 of 100 at 35% of the score, which is 52% of the distance to a perfect 100. See the arithmetic
Why this market does or does not qualify
Overall City Market Score rank #1,931 of 4,812. It does not enter the Buy & Hold shortlist under the baseline screen. Why rank and cash flow can disagree
Investor-entry estimate$61,423
Modeled rent$659/mo
20% down · base cash flow+$120/mo
25% down · rent stress to base+$90/mo to +$140/mo
Hold Coverage · 20% / 25%1.36 / 1.45
Conditional price ceiling · 25%$75,972
Required rent at entry estimate$533/mo
Limiting requirementDoes not pass the existing category-quality gate
Price × rent decision grid · 25% down
Change the two inputs that usually decide the deal. Green cells clear the three financial requirements before the separate quality and data gates.
| Monthly cash flow / Hold Coverage | 10% below entry$55,281 | Entry estimate$61,423 | 10% above entry$67,565 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% higher rent$725/mo | +$230/moHC 1.82 · clears financial screen | +$190/moHC 1.62 · clears financial screen | +$150/moHC 1.45 · clears financial screen |
| Modeled rent$659/mo | +$180/moHC 1.64 · clears financial screen | +$140/moHC 1.45 · clears financial screen | +$100/moHC 1.30 · clears financial screen |
| 10% lower rent$593/mo | +$130/moHC 1.45 · clears financial screen | +$90/moHC 1.29 · clears financial screen | +$50/moHC 1.15 · clears financial screen |
Expense waterfall · base case
Monthly, rounded to $10. NOI excludes CapEx and debt service.
- Scheduled rent+$660/mo
- Vacancy allowance−$30/mo
- Management−$50/mo
- Maintenance−$30/mo
- Property tax−$40/mo
- Insurance allowance−$30/mo
- NOI+$480/mo
- CapEx reserve−$30/mo
- Debt service−$310/mo
- Cash flow+$140/mo
Base+$140/mo · HC 1.45Rent stress+$90/mo · rent −10%Insurance-expense stress+$90/mo · allowance 1.5%
Two supported strengths
Stability 64/100 and Cash Flow 57/100.
Weakest measured signal
Growth is the weakest category at 36/100.
Primary evidenced risk: population growth is the weakest measured factor (10th national percentile). Data caveat: price is Zillow Bottom-Tier ZHVI (5th–35th percentile); rent is ACS survey gross rent and is not bedroom- or property-matched. Insurance is a 0.5% annual allowance, not a quote.
Scenario buy-hold-v1-2026-09-19: 7% fixed financing for 30 years; 20% and 25% down; 5% vacancy; 8% management on collected rent; 5% maintenance and 5% CapEx on scheduled rent; measured local property tax; 3% closing costs. Qualification also requires positive cash flow, Hold Coverage at least 1.10, nonnegative cash flow after 10% lower rent, and the existing quality and data gates.
Property verification checklist
- Confirm achievable rent with bedroom-matched comps, current listings, and any existing lease.
- Use the parcel’s actual tax bill and reassessment rules.
- Obtain a landlord insurance quote, including wind, flood, or named-storm coverage where relevant.
- Inspect roof, structure, mechanicals, deferred maintenance, and immediate capital needs.
- Verify utilities, HOA, licensing, inspection, registration, and local rental rules.
- Replace the modeled loan with a current lender quote, points, closing costs, and reserve requirements.
Why this grade
Overall 50.2 is a weighted geometric mean of the three category scores. Because they are multiplied rather than averaged, their distances from a perfect 100 combine as an exact identity, and each category's share of that distance is the arithmetic below, not an estimate. Growth carries 52% of it, which is what makes it the binding constraint on this grade.
Cash Flow · 35% weight
56.9 / 100
29% of the shortfall
Growth · 35% weight
36.1 / 100
52% of the shortfall
Stability · 30% weight
63.8 / 100
20% of the shortfall
Inside Growth, the shortfall splits over the factors the model scored here, exactly, in proportion to their published weights. The largest component is population growth (weight 12 of the category's 31, 10th national percentile, 55% of the category's own shortfall); next is income growth (weight 5 of the category's 31, 17th national percentile, 21% of the category's own shortfall).
What this is not. It is not a claim that a different value on any one factor would produce a different score or a different grade. Every factor is scored as a national percentile and the grade is a percentile cut against the other 4,812 ranked markets, so this market's position moves only relative to all of them, never on its own. 3 of the 13 factors could not be measured for this market (rent growth, violent crime, property crime) and had no credible reference group to impute from, so they are dropped: each category renormalizes over the factors that remain, and a dropped factor is never scored as neutral.
How Rockingham ranks nationally
Each row places Rockingham among all 4,812 ranked U.S. markets: the marker is this city, the centre tick is the national median, and the bar runs from one to the other. Further right is better for an investor; inverted measures (crime, vacancy, price-to-income) are already flipped.
Overall Scorethe flagship rank
50.260th percentile
Cash Flowyield & affordability
5759th percentile
Growthpopulation, jobs, income
3625th percentile
Stabilitycrime, vacancy, unemployment
6481st percentile
Expense-adjusted yield2.7% net of costs
4949th percentile
Affordabilityprice-to-income 3.6×
70more affordable than 70%
Rental vacancy2.3% vacant
87tighter than 87%
Population growth-0.5%/yr (capped)
1010th percentile
Job growth1.1%/yr (capped)
7272nd percentile
What a deal looks like here
A market-level buy-box for Rockingham, built from this market's own numbers: the investor-entry price, its rent, and local carrying costs. The market grade is a quality screen; the deal verdict below is this financing scenario only. An illustrative scenario, not a listing.
Target buy price
$61,423
Expected rent
$659 /mo
Rent-to-price
1.07%
Cap rate
9.3%
Cash-on-cash
9.7% at 25% dn
NOI-based DSCR
1.56
Hold Coverage
1.45 after CapEx reserve
Thin margin. At 25% down, named scenarios span +$90 to +$140/mo after reserves (10% lower-rent stress to base case). This range is not a confidence interval.
Buy target = Zillow Bottom-Tier ZHVI (5th–35th percentile) $61,423; typical home value $134,488. Rent = Census ACS (fallback) (a typical all-homes rent, not tier-matched, so the ratio likely overstates the entry-level reality). Assumptions: 25% down, 7% / 30-yr, 5% vacancy, 8% management on collected rent, 5% maintenance, 5% CapEx reserve excluded from NOI and subtracted from cash flow, 0.5% insurance, 0.76% property tax. Illustrative market-level scenario: not a listing, appraisal, recommendation, or underwriting decision. Zillow price as of 2026-08-31; rent from Census ACS 5-yr 2020–2024; dataset generated 2026-10-06.
Market Negotiation Leverage
Some buyer leverage (69th percentile among 6,196 cities with Redfin coverage)
Equal-weight composite of three Redfin signals’ national percentiles (days on market 21, months of supply 5.6, sale-to-list 92.7%), direction-adjusted so a higher percentile always means more room for a buyer to negotiate. This is a cross-sectional snapshot against every other tracked city today, not a seasonal or historical baseline for this specific city (no multi-year time series is committed for this data). Not a prediction of what any specific seller will accept. Source: Redfin Data Center. See how this is calculated.
Typical home value $134,488
Median rent $659/mo
Population 8,967
Region South Atlantic
Price & rent history
Home value $66,540 → $134,488 (2004-04–2026-08)
Asking rent: no Zillow ZORI series - Zillow does not cover this city (Census-only). Nothing plotted rather than estimated.
Source: Zillow ZHVI (home value), quarterly from 2004-04, monthly from 2016-09 to 2026-08. Change the range or hover to read any point. Gaps in the source series are left as gaps - never interpolated.
ZIP markets in Rockingham
2 Census ZIP Codes (ZCTAs) officially overlap Rockingham by land area · 2 data-eligible for subscores. Overlap is Census land-area share, not a population or address share. Each ZIP Code's overall Rental Investor ZIP Score, grade and canonical national rank are shown below (the two component signals, affordability and rental market, are separate percentiles). There is no city-scoped ZIP rank: city overlap isn't a ranking universe, so only the national rank is shown. These ZIP rankings sit in the ZIP universe only, never mixed with, and not directly comparable to, Rockingham's city ranking. Vintage: the Key metric column below is Census ACS 2020–2024 (5-year), the same survey release as the figures used above for Rockingham itself; a city and a ZIP Code are different geographies, so the same measure can still show a different number at each level.
2 of 2 overlapping ZIP Code areas, scoredgrade, overall Rental Investor ZIP Score and national rank for each, on a separate model from this page's city scoreShow table
| ZIP Code | Overallgrade · natl rank | Tier · overlap | Affordabilitysignal · natl rank | Rental marketsignal · natl rank | Key metric |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28379Rockingham | D 42#12,451 nat | RankedPrimary | 63#4,620 of 20,132 · top 23% | 71#1,686 of 20,132 · top 8% | 6.1%Survey yield |
| 28345Hamlet | D 42#12,742 nat | Ranked0.4% overlap | 65#4,068 of 20,132 · top 20% | 76#827 of 20,132 · top 4% | 8.3%Survey yield |
The honest read
Rockingham scores 50/100 overall (grade C): 57 for Cash Flow, 36 for Growth, and 64 for Stability, each a 0–100 score built from the factors in that category. The scenario above shows what a representative investor-entry purchase pencils out to at today's rates. Everything we can measure is in the table below, with its source.
Every factor, shown
The Overall score blends three category scores built from thirteen factors: Cash Flow (35%), Growth (35%), and Stability (30%). The tag on each percentile names the category a scored factor feeds; untagged rows are context, not scored. Each band chip restates that row's percentile in words. Every value carries its source and as-of date; a fallback source or imputed value is marked fallback. How the score works.
| Factor | Value | National percentile | Source · as-of | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expense-adjusted yield fallback | 2.7% | Below median49th percentile · Cash Flow | Census ACS · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Annual rent divided by price, net of a modeled vacancy, tax, capex, and management allowance: the core of the Cash Flow category and what the score is actually computed from. The unadjusted gross yield is shown elsewhere on this page. |
| Price to income | 3.6x | Above median70th percentile · Cash Flow | Zillow + ACS income · 2026-08-31 | Home price over local median income. Lower is cheaper relative to what people earn. Part of the Cash Flow category. |
| Population growth | -0.5%/yr | Bottom quartile10th percentile · Growth | Census PEP · Census PEP 2020→2025 (vintage 2025) + Census PEP 2015→2025 (vintages 2019+2025) | Census population trend for the place, capped at 4.5%/yr before scoring (diminishing returns above that rate): the heaviest factor in the Growth category. |
| Job growth | 1.1%/yr | Above median72nd percentile · Growth | BLS LAUS (county) · BLS LAUS county annual 2019→2025 (pre-COVID anchor; 2025 is an 11-month average) + BLS LAUS county annual 2015→2025 | County employment trend, capped at 4.0%/yr before scoring (diminishing returns above that rate). A Growth-category factor. |
| Income growth | 3.0%/yr | Bottom quartile17th percentile · Growth | Census ACS · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Local median-income trend. A Growth-category factor. |
| Rent growth | not measured | - | Census ACS · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | A 40/60 blend of 3-year and 10-year rent trend (the model's own weighting). A Growth-category factor. |
| Home-value growth | 3.6%/yr | Below median25th percentile · Growth | Zillow ZHVI · 3yr + 10yr to 2026-08-31 | A 40/60 blend of 3-year and 10-year price trend (the model's own weighting). A small Growth-category factor. |
| Violent crime | not measured | - | FBI Crime Data Explorer: no agency report for this place | Reported violent crimes per 100,000 residents a year (the FBI's monthly agency rates, times 12). No agency reported this place to the FBI and no credible reference group exists, so the score drops this factor and Stability renormalizes over the rest. City-level data cannot resolve within-neighborhood risk. |
| Property crime | not measured | - | FBI Crime Data Explorer: no agency report for this place | Reported property crimes per 100,000 residents a year. No agency reported this place to the FBI and no credible reference group exists, so the score drops this factor and Stability renormalizes over the rest. |
| Unemployment | 4.2% | Below median46th percentile · Stability | BLS LAUS (county) · BLS LAUS county annual 2025 (11-month average) | County unemployment rate. Lower is steadier, a Stability-category factor. |
| Rental vacancy | 2.3% | Top quartile87th percentile · Stability | Census ACS B25004 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Share of rentals empty. Lower means more pricing power. A Stability-category factor. |
| Property tax rate | 0.8% | Above median67th percentile · Stability | Census ACS B25103/B25077 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Median tax over median value. A direct drag on cash flow, scored in the Stability category as carrying-cost burden. |
| Months of supply | 5.6 mo | Bottom quartile13th percentile · Stability | Redfin Data Center · 2026-05-01 | Listings over sales pace. Under about 4 is a seller market, over 6 a buyer market. A Stability-category factor. |
| Days on market | 21 days | Top quartile78th percentile | Redfin Data Center · 2026-05-01 | How fast homes sell. Lower means more liquidity and an easier exit. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Sale-to-list ratio | 92.7% | Bottom 10%4th percentile | Redfin Data Center · 2026-05-01 | Sale price over asking. Above 100% means homes clear over ask. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Net domestic migration | +0.8/1k | Above median54th percentile | Census PEP (county) · PEP vintage 2025 | Net people moving in or out of the county, per 1,000 residents. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Building permits | 14.6/1k | Below median40th percentile | Census BPS (county) · BPS 2025 | New-construction permits per 1,000 homes. More means more supply coming. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Rent burden | 35% | Bottom quartile16th percentile | Census ACS B25071 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Median rent as a share of income. Higher means less headroom for increases. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Median year built | 1967 | Below median28th percentile | Census ACS B25035 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Age of the housing stock. Older stock carries more capex. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Max drawdown | 13% | Above median67th percentile | Zillow ZHVI · 2026-08-31 | Worst peak-to-trough home-value decline on record. Shown for context, not scored. |
- * Job growth and unemployment are county-level (BLS LAUS, county FIPS 37153); large multi-county cities inherit their dominant county’s figures.
- Yield uses ACS median gross rent and home value (Census survey data, 2020–2024 average) because Zillow does not cover this city - not directly comparable to Zillow-based yields.
- Data flag: cashYield: ACS fallback (no Zillow rent+value).
- Data flag: rentGrowth: ACS CAGR fallback. The score drops this factor for this market, so the factor table shows it as not measured.
Where to go next from Rockingham
Every link below is this market's own data taken one step further: its neighbours in the ranking, the same numbers side by side, or the same numbers in a calculator you can change.
Nearby in the North Carolina rankings, and national look-alikes
- Forest City, NCGrade B · score 51/100 · yield 6.1% · $190,259 · #1,858 nationalZillow ZHVI $72k (2000) to $190k (2026), +163%
- Hamlet, NCGrade B · score 50/100 · yield 6.8% · $131,881 · #1,915 nationalZillow ZHVI $64k (2004) to $132k (2026), +105%
- Durham, NCGrade C · score 50/100 · yield 5.1% · $389,634 · #1,979 nationalZillow ZHVI $162k (2001) to $390k (2026), +141%
- Reidsville, NCGrade C · score 50/100 · yield 6.7% · $211,582 · #2,027 nationalZillow ZHVI $100k (2000) to $212k (2026), +112%
- Park Forest, ILGrade C · score 50/100 · yield 13.4% · $161,174 · #1,933 nationalZillow ZHVI $67k (2000) to $161k (2026), +139%
- Wildomar, CAGrade C · score 50/100 · yield 5.0% · $651,487 · #1,934 nationalZillow ZHVI $169k (2000) to $651k (2026), +285%
- Eagan, MNGrade C · score 50/100 · yield 5.1% · $401,493 · #1,935 nationalZillow ZHVI $163k (2000) to $401k (2026), +146%
Compare Rockingham head to head
- Rockingham vs Forest City vs Park ForestThe pre-filled matchup: nearest in-state rank and closest national grade.
- Rockingham vs Hamlet, NCGrade B · yield 6.8%
- Rockingham vs Wildomar, CAGrade C · yield 5.0%
- Pick your own opponentAny of the 5,233 tracked cities.
Underwrite a Rockingham deal
- Cap rateOpens on Rockingham's own entry price and rent. Change either one.
- Cash flow & DSCRMonthly cash flow and DSCR, prefilled with this market's numbers.
- Mortgage paymentP&I on Rockingham's entry price at the assumptions shown above.
- All marketsCompare Rockingham against 4,812 ranked cities.
- North Carolina ZIP CodesEvery North Carolina ZIP Code area (Census ZCTAs), scored separately from the city rankings.
- Ranked listsSix lists, each with a disclosed entry rule.
Ranked lists: Highest yield · Cheapest vs. income · Rent covers the mortgage · Under $200k · Fastest-growing · Most stable
For learning, not advice. A market screen from public data - not a forecast, not underwriting, not a recommendation to buy anywhere.