Market Data
Gates County Market Data
This page publishes what is sourced and withholds what is not. Right now that means no median price, no days-on-market, and no inventory count for Gates County — and a plain explanation of why, plus how to get real numbers for your submarket.
Market Context
Live Report
Current Market Activity
There is no Gates County market activity report published on this page yet. The embedded report this page originally carried was scoped to a different county, and showing another market's medians under a Gates County headline is not something this site will do. A Gates County-scoped report is being prepared. In the meantime, the fastest way to get real numbers for what you are actually shopping — an improved house, a timber tract, or a building lot — is to ask for them directly.
What This Page Shows, and What It Does Not
This page will eventually carry a live active-listing count for Gates County, refreshed every twelve hours from the MLS, plus a Gates County-scoped market activity report. Today it carries neither, and it says so rather than filling the space.
What is missing and why: the MLS feed for this site is scoped to Gates County through Hive MLS but has not been provisioned yet, so there is no live count to display. The market activity report that belongs here has to be generated specifically for Gates County; the one this page inherited from the fleet template covered a different county entirely. It has been removed rather than relabelled.
Until both are in place, this site publishes no median sale price, no median list price, no price-per-acre figure, no days-on-market figure, no months-of-inventory figure, and no active listing count for Gates County. Not as an estimate and not as a range. If you need those numbers today, they exist — a licensed broker with MLS access can run them for the specific product you are shopping, which is more useful than a countywide figure anyway.
Why a Countywide Gates County Number Misleads
Gates County recorded 10,478 residents in the 2020 census, the fifth-smallest county population in North Carolina, spread across roughly 340 square miles of land.1 A county that thin does not produce enough comparable transactions in a quarter for a median to mean much. Worse, the transactions it does produce are not the same kind of thing as each other:
- Improved residential. A house on a lot or a few acres, usually on a state-maintained road, usually on a private well and an on-site septic system. This is what a relocating household buys.
- Farm and timber tracts. Land sold by the acre, often to an adjoining owner, often carrying present-use-value tax deferment that continues or gets billed back depending on how the deal is written. Agriculture and lumbering are still the county’s primary commercial enterprises.2
- Raw residential lots. Ground bought to build on, where what is really being purchased is a soil evaluation result, road frontage and a power drop — not a price per square foot.
Blend a forty-acre timber tract, a 1,400-square-foot ranch and a two-acre building lot into one median and you get a figure that describes none of them. Ask for comps inside the product type you are actually buying.
One structural fact does apply countywide. Gatesville is the only incorporated town in Gates County, and it is the county seat.3 Everything else — Sunbury, Eure, Hobbsville, Corapeake, Roduco, Gates — is an unincorporated community or a census-designated place. The place name on a listing here is a postal address, not a jurisdiction. Do not read it as a statement about who provides services to that parcel or who levies tax on it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is there no median price on this page?
Because there is no Gates County source to publish one from yet. This site’s MLS feed is scoped but not provisioned, and the market report this page originally embedded covered another county. Publishing a plausible-looking number would be worse than publishing none, because you would plan around it. When the feed is live, this page will carry real figures with a build timestamp on them.
Where can I get real Gates County numbers today?
Ask a broker with MLS access to run closed sales for the specific product you are shopping — improved residential, timber acreage, or building lots — rather than a countywide median. That is a more useful answer, and it takes about a day. Call (252) 632-8681 or request a custom analysis above.
Is there a town property tax in Gates County?
Only inside Gatesville, the county’s one incorporated town.3 Everywhere else there is no municipal rate, because there is no municipality. Separately, the county tax office bills fire protection fees and administers drainage districts, so a parcel can carry charges beyond the countywide rate without being in a town at all.4 Pull the actual tax card for the parcel rather than estimating from any rate you read anywhere, including here.
What are the closing taxes on a purchase here?
North Carolina levies a statewide excise tax on instruments conveying real property, customarily paid by the seller. A small number of northeastern North Carolina counties are additionally authorized by local act to levy a county land transfer tax on top of it. This site does not state whether Gates County is one of them, because that could not be confirmed against a primary source when this page was written. Ask your closing attorney to put the excise and transfer lines in writing before you sign a contract. It is a real four-figure difference on a mid-six-figure purchase, and it is not a question to discover at the settlement table.
Key Takeaways
- No Gates County price or inventory statistic is published on this site yet — the MLS feed is not connected and the figures this page inherited belonged to another county.
- A countywide median would mislead even with live data. Houses, timber tracts and building lots are three different products. Ask for comps inside yours.
- Gatesville is the only incorporated town. Every other place name on a listing here is postal, not jurisdictional.
- Get the excise and transfer tax lines in writing from your closing attorney before contract, not at the settlement table.
- Verify everything independently with a licensed professional before making a purchase decision.
- Gates County population, 2020 Decennial Census: 10,478. Land area approximately 340.6 square miles. U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census, and NCpedia’s county profile (which gives the land area as 340.45 square miles from the same source family). ncpedia.org/geography/gates. ↩
- “Agriculture and lumbering remain the county’s primary commercial enterprises.” NCpedia, Gates County, ncpedia.org/geography/gates. ↩
- Gatesville is the county seat and the county’s only incorporated municipality; Sunbury is a census-designated place, and Eure, Hobbsville, Corapeake, Roduco and Gates are unincorporated communities. U.S. Census Bureau place designations for Gates County. ↩
- “The Tax Department also bills and collects fire protection fees for the County” and administers drainage districts; the department maintains records on approximately 11,200 parcels. Gates County Tax Administration, gatescountync.gov/tax-administration. Phone (252) 357-1360. ↩
Go Deeper
The Data Tells You What. The Brief Tells You Why.
The market report shows you current inventory and pricing. The Gates County Buyer's Brief gives you the operational, financial, and regulatory framework to know what those numbers actually mean for your situation.