Cost of Living in New Bern
New Bern runs meaningfully below the national average on cost of living, driven by affordable housing and low property taxes -- a real, sourced advantage rather than an assumed small-town discount.
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Learn moreA genuinely below-average cost of living, by a wide margin
BestPlaces.net puts New Bern's cost-of-living index at 83.6, meaning total costs run 16.4% below the U.S. average and 8.1% above the North Carolina state average -- the metro-area figure reads almost identically (83, 17.0% below the U.S. average). This is a genuinely low cost of living by national standards, not just relative to other NC coastal markets (base record).
Housing and property taxes are the biggest drivers
New Bern's $334,000 citywide median home sale price (Redfin, May 2026) sits well below the roughly $400K+ U.S. national median cited elsewhere in this dataset, and Craven County's median effective property tax rate of 0.66% runs well below the 1.02% national median -- a real, compounding affordability advantage on top of the below-average cost-of-living index itself (base record).
Income runs below the state and national median, a real tradeoff
New Bern's median household income of $61,031 and 17.25% poverty rate both run less favorably than several comparable markets in this NC Tier B batch (base record) -- the low cost of living is real, but so is a lower local income base, worth weighing for anyone relocating for a specific job rather than remote work or retirement income.
Key takeaways
- BestPlaces.net cost-of-living index: 83.6 for the city (16.4% below the U.S. average), 83 for the metro area (17.0% below).
- Housing ($334,000 median) and property taxes (0.66% effective rate) are the two biggest drivers of the below-average cost of living.
- Median household income ($61,031) and poverty rate (17.25%) both run less favorably than several comparable NC Tier B markets -- a real tradeoff alongside the low cost of living.
- New Bern reads as a genuinely affordable coastal NC market by national standards, not merely cheap relative to Wilmington.
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