Wake County, NC Cap Rates by Neighborhood

County-Wide Gross Yield: A Starting Point That Misleads

At the current median home price of $482,092 and median rent of $1,676/month, Wake County's county-wide gross yield computes to 4.17% and its price-to-rent ratio sits at 24.0x. Neither number should drive a buy decision on its own.

The 24.0x ratio sits at the expensive end of what pencils for a buy-and-hold investor without rent upside, and the 4.17% gross is before taxes, insurance, vacancy, and maintenance. Once you subtract those line items, net operating yield on a median-priced asset is likely in the 2.5%–3.2% range depending on submarket. The county-wide figure also blends properties at opposite ends of a wide price-to-income spectrum: a newly built $550,000 home in Morrisville compresses yield in ways a $250,000 workforce rental in Garner does not. The spread across submarkets is where the real underwriting happens.

Property Tax Drag: Quantify It Before You Model Anything Else

Wake County's FY2026 property tax rate is $0.5371 per $100 of assessed value. On a $482,000 property, the county-level tax bill runs about $2,589 per year, or $216/month. That alone erases 12.9% of the $1,676 gross rent before a single repair order hits.

This matters because the county has now raised rates two consecutive years. The FY2025 rate was $0.5171; the FY2026 hike added 2 cents and generates an additional $62 million in revenue, partly to fund a $142 million library bond and expanded school system spending. A 2027 revaluation is on the calendar. North Carolina has no assessment caps, so investors who bought post-2020 at appreciated values already absorbed a full market reset in the January 2024 revaluation. Anyone acquiring now should assume the 2027 cycle resets again on whatever the market clears at in 2026–2027.

Net cap rate modeling should also layer in any applicable municipal overlay rate above the county base, flood insurance where applicable (discussed below), and standard operating expenses. The county rate alone shaves roughly 53 basis points off gross yield on a median-priced asset.

Cap Rate Compression vs. Decompression: Where the Market Sits in Mid-2026

Active listings rose 20.9% year-over-year from 2,766 in January 2025 to 3,528 in January 2026. Median sale price fell 4.3% to $450,000 over the same period, and median days on market increased 24.3% to 46 days.

The ZHVI reading of $482,092 reflects a -2.18% YoY decline. There is no matching rent decline in the data: ZORI holds at $1,676/month. That divergence means cap rates are decompressing at the margin. Prices are falling faster than rents, which is the direction investors want the ratio to move. The 27,000-unit structural shortage at the affordable rental end of the market provides a floor under rent erosion. Investors entering now get slightly better yields than buyers from 2022–2023 and longer due-diligence windows (46-day median DOM versus the sub-two-week pace of the pandemic cycle).

Submarket Breakdown by Yield Profile

South Wake / Holly Springs: Workforce Biomanufacturing Play

Holly Springs anchors the highest-conviction workforce rental thesis in the county. Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies has committed more than $2.7 billion to its Holly Springs campus and pledged 680 new jobs at average wages exceeding $109,000. Novartis followed with a $771 million, multi-site Wake County investment targeting up to 700 hires. These are not speculative announcements; they are capital-deployed facilities with published wage floors.

High wages at that level do not typically keep workers renting workforce housing indefinitely, but the pipeline of hiring creates a durable rental demand cohort during the 3–5 year window between hire date and household formation into ownership. SFR and small multifamily in Holly Springs and Fuquay-Varina adjacent corridors benefit from that dynamic. Gross yields here likely compress relative to county median because the submarket has appreciated sharply, but rent durability is high relative to other southern Wake corridors.

Garner (27529) and Apex (27502): Inventory Relief Creates Entry Windows

Garner saw a 72% year-over-year surge in new listings in Q1 2025; Apex (27502) rose 54%. These are outer-ring suburban markets where supply relief gives buyers negotiating room that did not exist in 2021–2023. The offset is that elevated inventory may compress near-term appreciation and keep cap rates from expanding further on the rent side. Garner, as an eastern suburb adjacent to Southeast Raleigh's transitional corridor, offers the best gross yield entry points in Wake County for workforce SFR. The caveat is that investors should confirm flood zone classification via Wake County's iMAPS tool before closing, since Garner sits along creek corridors that carry moderate inundation risk.

Morrisville (27560): Technology Submarket, Yield Compression Risk

Morrisville also posted a 72% year-over-year inventory increase in Q1 2025, but the Morrisville demand base is tied to Research Triangle Park and technology employers including Red Hat/IBM and Cisco. Ralliant Corporation's new global headquarters in nearby North Hills reinforces white-collar job creation in this arc. At technology-worker income levels, home purchase competition from renter households is real, which supports rent but also means the price-to-rent ratio in this submarket is likely wider than the 24.0x county median. Gross yields are probably at or below county average; net yields after tax and operating expense are thin. The thesis here is appreciation, not current cash flow.

Downtown Raleigh Core: Near-Term Supply Overhang

Downtown Raleigh carries the most explicit supply risk in the county. The Downtown Raleigh Alliance documented 12 active development projects as of Q2 2025, totaling 953 new residential units. Raleigh 27605 saw a 66% year-over-year jump in new listings. Investors underwriting urban-core multifamily or condos should model flat-to-negative rent growth through the delivery window for this pipeline, likely through 2026–2027. The gross yield ceiling is already constrained by price levels; 953 additional units tightening vacancy further compresses net yield. The BRT buildout on New Bern Avenue (construction underway, connecting downtown to a park-and-ride east of the Beltline) creates a longer-term transit premium that may eventually lift rents east of the core, but that is a 3–5 year horizon play, not a current cash flow story.

Southeast Raleigh (College Park, South Park): Transitional Spread, Elevated Risk

Southeast Raleigh shows the widest price spread in the county: newly built multi-story homes selling above $500,000 adjacent to legacy homes valued around $100,000. That gap represents a transitional yield opportunity. An investor acquiring a legacy-priced asset in a block undergoing rapid price appreciation can achieve gross yields well above the 4.17% county median while capturing unrealized appreciation. The risks are real: affordable-housing advocacy is active in the corridor, displacement pressure is documented, and any regulatory response, whether rent stabilization ordinance or acquisition restrictions, could alter the underwriting in ways current models do not capture. The New Bern Avenue BRT construction running through this corridor is a tailwind, but investors should price in both regulatory risk and reputational exposure.

Flood Risk Adjustment

Wake County is an inland Piedmont market, so flood insurance is not a universal line item the way it is in coastal NC counties. Flood hazard areas are concentrated along creek corridors, and the 2022 floodplain extent maps cover both 1% and 0.2% annual-chance events. Any property within or adjacent to creek corridors, in Garner, eastern Raleigh, or parts of Southeast Raleigh, should be queried against Wake County's iMAPS flood zone layer before closing. A federally required flood insurance policy on a $482,000 property adds $1,000–$2,500 or more annually to operating costs depending on zone and structure classification, which can shave another 20–50 basis points off net yield.

Neighborhood Comparison: Yield and Supply Snapshot

Cap Rate Outlook

The direction of travel for net yields in Wake County is modestly favorable for buyers entering in 2026 relative to 2022–2023. Prices are off from peak, rents are holding, and the structural rental shortage of 27,000-plus units at the affordable end provides a floor under rate pressure. The 33 corporate announcements totaling $4.5 billion and nearly 12,000 jobs since late 2024 represent a sustained demand driver that will continue absorbing rental units across multiple submarkets.

The ceiling on yield expansion is set by two countervailing forces: the 2027 revaluation, which will likely reset assessed values upward if the market stabilizes at current prices, and the downtown supply pipeline, which keeps urban-core rents under pressure through delivery. Investors who stay in workforce-quality SFR and small multifamily, positioned near BRT corridors still in the design phase (Southern Corridor, Western Raleigh-to-Cary corridor), and who underwrite NC's new ADU mandate (SB 495, 2025) as a value-add lever, have the clearest path to net yields in the 4.5%–5.5% range on entry prices below county median.

Model your specific deal with our investment property calculator to stress-test these assumptions against your actual acquisition price, financing terms, and target submarket.