Sporting a median home price around the $200k mark, with average homes going for 2% under list in 15 days, and hot homes going for 2% over ask in 7 days. Non-market priced homes are sitting for around 55 days. Homes are still getting multiple offers and waiving contingencies. Buyers are still here.

Let's talk the data I like to see. Population; currently sitting at 33k people. Growth rate of -0.83% annually, with a -4.36% growth reported on the 2020 census. Not good. The population peaked around 40.7k in 1990, and has steadily declined since then. Most inbound and outbound movers are heading to, or coming from Raleigh NC. Median age of 39.

Sporting roughly a 25% poverty rate, and a 40% owner occupied rate, affordable housing has a large place in this market.

Wayne County that Goldsboro belongs in supports a population of 117k people with a -.04% population growth rate annually. Also falling behind in growth, and sporting a 20% poverty rate. Wayne county market is 58% SFH, 17% MFH, 27%+- Mobile Home, 56% owner occupied.

Cost of Living (CoL) in Goldsboro is 48/50 most expensive city in NC and ranked top 28% most expensive in the world, making it extremely affordable here in NC.

Let's talk crime, because it's no small thing to pass off with Goldsboro. Normally any city is going to have it's crime, and it's not something to usually dissuade people. With Goldsboro, we find a unique situation however, despite it's size; Goldsboro's rate of crime is one of the highest in the USA when compared to the smallest or largest of cities in the US. Chance of being a victim of violent or property crime is 1 in 16, higher than 94% of all other cities in the US, and firmly places Goldsboro as the 43rd most dangerous city to live in the US. Using the crime index, which scales 0-100, 100 being the safest cities, Goldsboro scores a 2. Effectively safer than 2% of all other locations in the US that provide crime data statistics.

To get the bigger picture let's look at crime data for Wayne County, which ranks overall in the 54% for dangerous counties. The rate of being a victim of a crime varies between 1 in 16 to 1 in 45, depending on the location in county. By ignoring where the population lives, and focusing on where the crime is committed East Wayne sees about 820 reported crimes yearly on average vs West Wayne which sees an average of 122. So not terribly bad for the entire county, it's quite clear the crime is generally localized. A lot of the crime is happening in commercial districts at much higher rate then the more residential west side of Wayne County.

I don't typically like to focus on negative statistics, I try to highlight where the potential upside is and I normally don't like going super deep on crime, but I do feel it's important to be upfront aware of the area in Goldsboro NC before looking to invest there, it's not like the vast majority of the rest of the state in the way crime is happening in the city.

It appears that Hosokawa is bringing a plant with 16 jobs that was signed in 2021 with Roy Cooper, and intended to be operational by fall 2022. Despite searching I cannot seem to find an update on that, if anyone knows please let me know. The were going to be paying $15k+ over median salary to those 16, and that's the only real company movement I've found in recent years.

To conclude: There is a solid base for affordable housing, cheap flips, and BRRRR projects. The rate of crime is higher, but a home is 300% more likely to be broken into without a security system, so there are other forms of crime mitigation outside of choosing a good location. At the end of the day however, crime happens everywhere, so an investor must calculate that into their risk factors and make the plan. There is a great opportunity to get in a cheap price point, but a declining population and a lack of interest for businesses to move in, sporting some of the cheapest CoL in NC, should be if nothing else yellow flags. Always do your due diligence, research, run the comps, Goldsboro has investors working it actively so it's not a market that is completely off the table, and opportunity is there if you are comfortable with the risks.

As always looking for any questions, comments, concerns, and feedback. It's impossible to know everything about a market, so if you have any value adds, please drop 'em! Looking to connect with more people as well, so please reach out!

For more reading and sources:

https://www.redfin.com/city/68...

https://www.realtor.com/reales...

https://www.census.gov/quickfa...

https://censusreporter.org/pro...

https://worldpopulationreview....

https://www.neighborhoodscout....

https://livingcost.org/cost/un...

https://stacker.com/north-caro...

https://crimegrade.org/safest-...

https://ncgtpedr.com/hosokawa-...

https://www.commerce.nc.gov/ne...