Hickory 28602

Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC · Catawba County, NC · 2,267 properties · updated 7/26/2026

Should you buy here?buyer-timing lens

54affordability /100

Buyer leverage is balanced; weigh payment burden and the 3-lens valuation before bidding.

Payment burden

28.2%

stretched

Days on market

daily

Price cuts

23.2%

of active

Valuation

-39.2%

vs assessor

Look up an address

/100

mixed

warming · balanced · prices rising year-over-year.

Verdict grades housing conditions; buyer-timing, investor cash-flow, supply-tightness and county macro scores answer different questions — each in its own section.

Buyer / sellerbuyer-timing lens

Negotiate Hard

DOM: 76d (rising) · Market Dynamics rolling median · hourly

Score Components

Payment Burden (25%)25

Valuation Gap (25%)100

Supply & Demand (20%)100

Buy vs Rent (15%)50

Cancellation Rate (10%)50

Days on Market (5%)75

Moderate buyer leverage in 28602. Room to negotiate 5-10% below list. Payment burden: 28.0% of median income. Median days on market: 76. Renting is approximately 28% cheaper than buying (price-to-rent ratio: 15.3). Market appears 47% overpriced vs. assessed values.

What to Offer

Offer 5-10% below list. You have room to negotiate.

Conditions resemble 2019 pre-pandemic levels — moderate overvaluation with slowing demand. Negotiation room exists.

WARMINGBALANCED

Market is warming with rising prices. Conditions are balanced between buyers and sellers.

Address lookup$99 report path

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<iframe src="https://lotvox.com/embed/zip/28602" width="100%" height="300" style="border:0;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;max-width:640px" loading="lazy" title="Hickory 28602 — Lotvox market card"></iframe>
<p style="font:12px system-ui;margin:4px 0 0"><a href="https://lotvox.com/hickory/zip/28602?utm_source=embed&utm_medium=backlink">Hickory 28602 housing market data</a> by <a href="https://lotvox.com/">Lotvox</a></p>

Market snapshoteach number, once

Median price

$254,384

▴ 1.6% YoY

Days on market

daily · zip_data

Median rent

$1,564

ZORI

Investor score

74/100

cash-flow lens

Active listings

111

90-day

Valuation3 lenses, different anchors

vs assessor

-39.2%

Market vs assessed value — a tax-roll lag, not a deal signal.

Avg assessor$154,700

county CAMA · properties_v

vs income

—

Fair-value model not available for this market.

fair_value_scores · 10-state coverage

vs county comps

+36.4%

County-wide market — the widest, slowest signal.

Burke+36.4%

Lotvox comps · mv_valuation_gap

Read together: Above county comps but sustainable on local incomes.

Pricing detail

Price / sqft$171

Price-to-income4.6×

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How 28602 ranks in NC

percentile vs all NC ZIPs

Comparative ranking not available for this ZIP.

Affordability, supply & momentum

32SUPPLY

BalancedSupply Tightness

Supply and demand are roughly even — standard negotiation dynamics.

Months of Supply20.9 mo

Days on Market52d

Inv vs History-4.0%

Listing Density9.5/1k

Market dynamics

Price cut %23.2%

Momentumwarming

LeverageBALANCED

Months of supply20.9

Sales (90d)0

Investment analysis

Median rent$1,564

Price-to-rent15.3

Est. cap rate4.2%

Buy vs rentfavors buying

Livability

Walk score4

Transit score1

Bike score—

Historical trends

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Price bandsmix-shift

Price Bands — the median behind the median

A single median rises whenever expensive homes become a bigger share of what sells, even if no tier got more expensive. These are the tiers underneath it, computed from recorded arms-length deed transactions in Catawba.

Current tiers · 12 months to Invalid Datefloor 10 sales/tier

7 tiers had too few sales at every level and are left blank rather than estimated.

Tier	Median	$/sqft	Sales	Share	Source
Under $250k	—	—	—	—	fewer than 10 sales at zip, county and metro level
$250k–$500k	—	—	—	—	fewer than 10 sales at zip, county and metro level
$500k–$750k	—	—	—	—	fewer than 10 sales at zip, county and metro level
$750k–$1M	—	—	—	—	fewer than 10 sales at zip, county and metro level
$1M–$1.5M	—	—	—	—	fewer than 10 sales at zip, county and metro level
$1.5M–$2M	—	—	—	—	fewer than 10 sales at zip, county and metro level
$2M+	—	—	—	—	fewer than 10 sales at zip, county and metro level

No mix-shift history for this area. no geography from this ZIP up to metro has 8+ quarters of 10+ recorded arms-length sales across at least 4 price tiers. Trends are drawn only from recorded transactions; the last-sale snapshot above cannot carry a time series, because a property that sold twice keeps only its latest sale — which drags the history upward through the tiers and would invent the very mix shift this section exists to test for.

National context — not local

NAR's aggregate existing-home median for the United States and the South census region. This is the figure the tiers above are a check on. It is national/regional and says nothing about 28602.

United States
South

Copyright, National Association of Realtors. Reprinted with permission. Retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. FRED publishes a rolling 13-month window for these series.

Tiers computed from Lotvox parcel and deed substrate through Aug 25 (10 later months withheld as partially loaded). Sample floor 10 sales per tier; below it a figure is drawn from the county or metro and labelled, or left blank. Multi-parcel bulk deeds and duplicate records are excluded.

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Catawba County contextmacro · jobs · debt · migration

ZIP score grades housing; county score adds macro distress (jobs, debt, poverty). They answer different questions.

ZIP 28602→Burke County, NC

12-Month Direction

0Stable

Confidence

100%

DeterioratingStableImproving

BuildersLens Market Intelligence

Market Score

47· Weak

Market Score grades housing-market conditions (affordability, valuation, supply). The county Healthy/Moderate/Distressed badge measures economic distress (jobs, debt, poverty) — the two can read differently.

Payment Burden52

29%

stretched

Source: Lotvox · Updated 2026-05-15

Buy vs Rent35

1.48x

rent advantage

Source: Lotvox · Updated 2026-05-15

Valuation28

+36.4%

overvalued

Source: Lotvox comps · Updated 2026-05-15