Raleigh vs Wake Forest

A side-by-side comparison of Raleigh and Wake Forest: population, income, housing, and more.

Raleigh and Wake Forest are places in North Carolina. This page compares them across population, income, housing, education, commuting, and how each has changed since 2019.

Raleigh has the higher population (470,763 vs 51,199 in Wake Forest). Wake Forest has the higher median household income ($120,777 vs $82,424 in Raleigh). Wake Forest has the higher median home value ($435,000 vs $377,800 in Raleigh).

Population, income & housing

	Raleigh	Wake Forest
Population	470,763	51,199
Median age	34.7 yrs	38.8 yrs
Median household income	$82,424	$120,777
Median home value	$377,800	$435,000
Median gross rent	$1,468	$1,458
Housing units	218,200	18,824
Homeownership rate	51.2%	74.7%
Bachelor's degree or higher	52.9%	57.8%
Unemployment rate	4.5%	4.5%

Trends (ACS 5-year, 2019–2023)

	Raleigh	Wake Forest
Population	464,485 → 470,763 (+1.4%)	42,111 → 51,199 (+21.6%)
Median household income	$67,266 → $82,424 (+22.5%)	$92,210 → $120,777 (+31.0%)
Median home value	$248,300 → $377,800 (+52.2%)	$297,300 → $435,000 (+46.3%)
Median gross rent	$1,121 → $1,468 (+31.0%)	$1,117 → $1,458 (+30.5%)

Raleigh

Population

464,485470,763

Median household income

$67,266$82,424

Median home value

$248,300$377,800

Median gross rent

$1,121$1,468

Wake Forest

Population

42,11151,199

Median household income

$92,210$120,777

Median home value

$297,300$435,000

Median gross rent

$1,117$1,458

Age & race/ethnicity

Age distribution (share)

	Raleigh	Wake Forest
Under 5	5.7%	7.0%
5 to 17	14.5%	20.1%
18 to 24	11.6%	6.5%
25 to 34	18.8%	11.9%
35 to 44	14.4%	15.2%
45 to 54	13.0%	16.3%
55 to 64	10.4%	9.7%
65 to 74	7.1%	7.8%
75 and over	4.6%	5.6%

Race & ethnicity (share)

	Raleigh	Wake Forest
White (non-Hispanic)	51.4%	65.6%
Black or African American	27.0%	19.7%
American Indian & Alaska Native	0.2%	0.1%
Asian	4.7%	2.4%
Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander	0.0%	0.0%
Some other race	0.4%	0.3%
Two or more races	3.5%	4.1%
Hispanic or Latino	12.7%	7.8%

Educational attainment (age 25+)

Share of adults 25+

	Raleigh	Wake Forest
No high school diploma	7.5%	4.2%
High school graduate	15.9%	13.2%
Some college or associate's	23.6%	24.8%
Bachelor's degree	32.5%	35.3%
Graduate or professional degree	20.4%	22.6%

Commute to work

How workers get to work (share)

	Raleigh	Wake Forest
Drove alone	65.1%	68.5%
Carpooled	6.6%	4.5%
Public transit	1.3%	0.1%
Walked	1.6%	0.9%
Bicycle	0.4%	0.0%
Worked from home	23.4%	25.1%
Other means	1.6%	0.9%

Housing

Units in structure (share)

	Raleigh	Wake Forest
1-unit, detached	43.8%	68.1%
1-unit, attached	14.4%	10.9%
2 to 4 units	5.7%	3.7%
5 to 19 units	17.7%	8.9%
20 or more units	17.1%	6.7%
Mobile home & other	1.3%	1.7%

Poverty & households

	Raleigh	Wake Forest
Poverty rate	11.4%	2.9%
Average household size	2.30	2.82
Mean commute (minutes)	23	31
Median year structure built	1996	2007