CNBC’s latest ranking of cities for jobs and income growth shows a clear pattern: mid-size Sun Belt metros are dominating. Raleigh, Nashville, Austin, and Charlotte all landed in the top tier for job creation, wage growth, and cost-adjusted income gains.
These aren’t the largest metros. They’re not the most famous. They don’t have the legacy infrastructure or institutional prestige of New York, San Francisco, or Boston. But they’re winning the competition for high-wage job growth and quality of life that actually pencils out financially.
The gap isn’t close. Workers in these four metros are building wealth 30-50% faster than counterparts in coastal cities when you account for housing costs, taxes, and living expenses. For property investors, this wage growth translates directly into rental demand sustainability and resident retention.
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The Job Growth Numbers
Raleigh added jobs at a 3.8% annual rate over the last five years. Nashville grew 3.6%. Austin 4.1% before the 2023-2024 cooldown. Charlotte 3.4%. These growth rates dwarf the national average of 1.9% and coastal metros like San Francisco at 0.8%, New York at 1.2%, and Boston at 1.6%.
Job growth alone doesn’t tell the story. The quality of jobs matters. Raleigh added 42,000 tech and biotech positions since 2019. Nashville grew healthcare and entertainment infrastructure by 35,000 jobs. Charlotte’s financial services sector expanded 28,000 positions. Austin added 65,000 tech roles before the correction.
These are knowledge economy jobs with median salaries of $75,000-120,000. They’re not warehouse or distribution center positions at $35,000-45,000. The income base supporting rental housing in these metros improved dramatically in quality and quantity simultaneously.
Compare that to legacy coastal metros. San Francisco shed 47,000 tech jobs 2022-2024 as companies relocated or downsized. New York’s finance sector is flat to down, with major banks reducing Manhattan headcount. Boston’s biotech growth slowed as venture funding dried up. The job gains in these cities are occurring in lower-wage service sectors supporting the shrinking high-wage base.
Cost-Adjusted Income: The Number That Matters
CNBC’s analysis focused on a metric most rankings ignore: income adjusted for cost of living. A household earning $95,000 in Raleigh has more purchasing power than a household earning $145,000 in San Francisco.
The math is straightforward. Median home prices in Raleigh run $380,000. San Francisco median is $1,350,000. At 6.8% mortgage rates with 20% down, the Raleigh buyer pays $2,430 monthly for PITI. The San Francisco buyer pays $8,670 monthly.
That $6,240 monthly difference equals $74,880 annually in after-tax dollars required just to maintain equivalent housing. To generate $74,880 in after-tax income at a 28% effective tax rate requires $104,000 in additional gross earnings.
The San Francisco household needs $104,000 more in gross income just to match the Raleigh household’s housing purchasing power. That’s before accounting for California’s 9.3% state income tax versus North Carolina’s 4.75%, and San Francisco’s higher costs for childcare, food, insurance, and transportation.
When you run the full comparison, the $95,000 Raleigh household has equivalent purchasing power to a $165,000-175,000 San Francisco household. The nominal income gap of $70,000-80,000 disappears entirely in cost adjustments.
Nashville and Charlotte: Different Paths, Same Results
Nashville built its economy on healthcare headquarters, entertainment infrastructure, and corporate relocations. HCA Healthcare, Community Health Systems, and dozens of mid-size healthcare companies employ 85,000 people in Nashville paying median wages of $68,000-92,000.
The entertainment sector adds another 35,000 jobs with high variability in income but overall strong wage floors due to skilled labor demands in production, engineering, and creative roles.
Corporate relocations brought AllianceBernstein, Oracle, and dozens of smaller firms seeking lower operating costs and better quality of life for employees. These relocations added 15,000-20,000 positions with median salaries of $85,000-110,000.
Charlotte took a different path: doubling down on financial services while diversifying into tech and logistics. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Truist employ 65,000 people in Charlotte. The fintech sector added another 18,000 positions since 2019 as companies like AvidXchange and LendingTree expanded.
Charlotte’s approach carries more cyclical risk than Nashville’s healthcare base, but also higher wage ceilings. Senior financial services roles pay $120,000-180,000, while healthcare caps out at $110,000-140,000 for most positions. Both metros deliver strong median incomes, just with different sector exposure.
Austin: The Boom-Bust Exception
Austin’s 4.1% job growth rate topped all four metros, but the composition created vulnerability. Tech concentration reached 28% of total employment by 2022. When interest rates rose and tech sector layoffs accelerated, Austin lost 22,000 jobs in 2023 and another 14,000 in early 2024.
Tesla, Oracle, Apple, and Dell anchor Austin’s economy with 75,000 combined employees. But the supporting ecosystem of startups, contractors, and service providers proved fragile. When venture funding collapsed and hiring froze, secondary and tertiary jobs evaporated quickly.
Austin is correcting but not collapsing. Population growth slowed from 3.2% annually to 1.1%, but remains positive. Tech hiring resumed modestly in late 2024. The University of Texas continues producing 12,000 graduates annually, many of whom stay local.
The lesson isn’t that Austin failed. It’s that sector concentration creates volatility. Raleigh’s balanced mix of tech, biotech, universities, and government provides stability. Nashville’s healthcare and entertainment diversification limits downside. Charlotte’s finance and logistics combination spreads risk. Austin bet heavily on one sector and paid the price when it contracted.
Raleigh: The Steady Winner
Raleigh might be the most interesting success story of the four. It lacks Austin’s tech glamour, Nashville’s entertainment culture, and Charlotte’s finance prestige. But it wins on fundamentals.
The Research Triangle houses Duke, UNC, NC State, and dozens of research institutes producing 45,000 graduates annually. Apple is building a $1 billion campus for 3,000 employees. Biotech firms like Fujifilm Diosynth and IQVIA employ thousands in high-wage roles. State government provides 55,000 stable jobs with solid benefits.
This combination creates a wide base of educated workers with limited boom-bust volatility. Raleigh didn’t see Austin’s meteoric 2021-2022 growth. It also didn’t see Austin’s 2023-2024 correction. It grew steadily at 2.8-3.2% annually for a decade, compounding without interruption.
For property investors, that consistency matters enormously. Steady job growth supports predictable rental demand. Educated workers prioritize housing quality and stay longer when treated fairly. University-adjacent markets provide seasonal absorption of inventory as graduates enter the workforce.
Raleigh also avoided the luxury oversupply trap that caught Austin and Denver. New construction ran 15-20% below Austin’s pace relative to population growth. Supply stayed tight enough to support rent growth without the crushing oversupply that destroyed investor returns in overbuilt markets.
Why These Four Matter For Investors
Property investors should care about job growth and wage trends for one simple reason: resident ability to pay rent derives from income, and income stability determines retention rates.
A market adding 3.5% jobs annually with median wages of $75,000 can support 4-5% annual rent increases sustainably. Residents get raises that outpace rent growth, making renewals attractive. Landlords capture steady NOI growth without pricing out their resident base.
A market adding 1% jobs annually with stagnant wages cannot support meaningful rent increases. Residents facing 4% annual increases while wages stay flat will move to cheaper options or add roommates. Turnover rises, vacancy increases, and the landlord’s attempt to grow revenue backfires.
The four metros in CNBC’s top tier all support sustainable rent growth through genuine wage expansion. That’s not true in most markets.
The Geographic Advantage
These metros share several structural advantages over coastal competitors:
Lower regulatory friction: Permitting timelines run 8-14 months versus 24-36 months in California or New York. Developers can respond to demand signals faster, preventing the severe supply shortages that drive explosive rent growth followed by overbuilding.
Reasonable land costs: Developable land in Raleigh runs $80,000-120,000 per acre. Nashville is $100,000-150,000. Charlotte is $120,000-180,000. Compare to San Francisco at $2-4 million per acre or New York suburbs at $800,000-1.5 million. Lower land costs allow construction of workforce housing that actually pencils at achievable rents.
Business-friendly tax structures: North Carolina’s 4.75% flat income tax and Tennessee’s 0% income tax beat California’s 13.3% top rate and New York’s 10.9%. Corporations pay attention to these differences when locating operations. Workers keep more of their earnings, reducing the gross salary required to achieve desired living standards.
Quality of life at scale: These metros offer urban amenities, cultural infrastructure, good schools, and outdoor recreation without the dysfunction of larger cities. Workers can get to jobs in 25-35 minute commutes instead of 60-90 minutes. Housing costs allow single-income households to live comfortably, reducing financial stress.
What Happens When Growth Slows
The obvious question: how durable are these growth patterns? Austin’s correction suggests vulnerability when a single sector dominates. But Raleigh, Nashville, and Charlotte have more diversified economies.
Raleigh will keep growing as long as universities produce graduates and Apple’s campus attracts supplier ecosystems. Even a recession that cuts private sector hiring by 30% would be offset partially by stable government and university employment.
Nashville’s healthcare base is counter-cyclical. Hospital systems and insurance companies hire during recessions. Entertainment has volatility but Nashville’s concentration of recording studios and production facilities creates sticky employment.
Charlotte’s finance sector is cyclical but the metro has enough logistics, manufacturing, and professional services employment to avoid severe contractions. The 2008-2009 recession hit Charlotte hard but recovery started quickly as finance stabilized.
The key insight: these metros don’t need to grow 3-4% annually forever to justify investment. Growing 1.5-2.5% annually through a full economic cycle while avoiding severe corrections creates better long-term returns than volatile 5% growth followed by 2% contraction.
The Coastal Premium Is Dead
For decades, workers accepted lower real incomes in New York, San Francisco, and Boston because those cities offered career opportunities, cultural amenities, and prestige unavailable elsewhere. That premium made sense when the income gap was genuinely large and remote work didn’t exist.
The math changed. A senior software engineer in San Francisco earns $185,000. The same role in Raleigh pays $145,000. That $40,000 nominal gap becomes a $25,000-35,000 real income advantage for Raleigh after adjusting for housing, taxes, and living costs.
Remote work eliminated the career opportunity argument. A developer can work for a San Francisco company from Raleigh, earning $160,000 remotely and enjoying Raleigh’s cost structure. Why pay Bay Area housing costs?
The cultural amenity argument weakened as mid-size metros built infrastructure. Raleigh has professional sports, performing arts venues, restaurant scenes, and outdoor recreation that match most of what Boston offers. Nashville’s entertainment options rival anything outside New York and Los Angeles.
The prestige argument persists but matters primarily to people under 30 or over 50. Workers aged 30-50 with families care more about school quality, housing affordability, and commute times than being able to say they live in San Francisco.
Investment Strategy In Growth Markets
For property investors, these four metros offer the best risk-adjusted returns in residential real estate over the next decade.
Buy workforce housing in job growth corridors. Three-bedroom, two-bath homes or townhouses priced at $300,000-450,000 serve households earning $65,000-95,000. These are the nurses, teachers, mid-level corporate employees, and skilled trades workers who power growing economies. They can afford $1,800-2,400 monthly rent, they stay 3-5 years on average, and they treat properties reasonably.
Avoid luxury overleveraged plays. Austin’s luxury apartment oversupply demonstrates the risk of chasing high-end inventory in speculative growth markets. Luxury renters are mobile, demanding, and disappear quickly when job markets soften. Workforce renters have fewer options and higher friction costs to relocate.
Target submarkets near job centers. Raleigh’s Research Triangle, Nashville’s downtown and Brentwood corridor, Charlotte’s south end and university area, Austin’s Domain and east side all offer proximity to major employers. Residents will pay $150-250 monthly premiums for 15-minute commutes versus 35-minute commutes.
Underwrite for 2-3% annual rent growth. These markets can support 4-5% growth in strong years but assuming 2-3% provides margin of safety. When wages grow 3.5% and you raise rents 2.5%, residents renew at high rates and you sleep well.
Hold for 7-10 years minimum. Transaction costs eat 8-10% of property value between buying and selling. You need 3-4 years just to recover those costs through appreciation and loan paydown. The real wealth creation happens in years 5-10 as rent growth and loan amortization compound.
The Compounding Advantage
A property purchased in Raleigh in 2015 for $220,000 now values at $380,000. That’s 72% appreciation over nine years, or 6.2% annually. During the same period, rents increased from $1,400 to $2,100 monthly, a 50% gain.
The investor who bought in 2015 with 20% down invested $44,000. The property now has $160,000 in equity from appreciation plus $48,000 in loan paydown. Total equity: $208,000 on a $44,000 investment. That’s 373% return before accounting for cash flow.
Annual cash flow started at roughly $4,200 after all expenses and grew to $9,600 as rents increased and the mortgage payment stayed fixed. Over nine years, cumulative cash flow totaled approximately $58,000.
Total return: $208,000 equity gain plus $58,000 cash flow equals $266,000 on $44,000 invested. That’s a 505% total return, or 21.8% annualized.
This return profile required zero special skill. The investor bought a decent property in a growing market, maintained it reasonably, charged fair rents, and held through a complete cycle. The compounding of rent growth, appreciation, and loan amortization did the rest.
That same math works going forward in Raleigh, Nashville, Charlotte, and the stabilized version of Austin. It doesn’t work in stagnant markets like Detroit, declining markets like parts of the Rust Belt, or overheated markets like certain California metros where price-to-rent ratios make cash flow impossible.
Property Management Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Why Mid-Size Metros Win Long-Term
The structural advantages of mid-size growth metros compound over decades, not just years. As these cities add jobs and population, they build infrastructure, attract more companies, improve schools, and enhance quality of life. This creates virtuous cycles that sustain growth even through economic contractions.
Large coastal cities face the opposite dynamic: rising costs drive out middle-class workers, eroding the tax base, forcing service cuts, degrading quality of life for remaining residents, and accelerating out-migration. These doom loops are playing out in San Francisco, Portland, and parts of greater Los Angeles.
The mid-size metros aren’t perfect. They have traffic problems, affordability challenges in desirable neighborhoods, and growing pains from rapid expansion. But their problems are problems of success, not decline. That’s the environment where real estate investors build lasting wealth.
For the next decade, bet on Raleigh’s steady growth, Nashville’s diversified economy, Charlotte’s financial sector strength, and Austin’s eventual stabilization. These four metros are winning the competition for jobs, residents, and capital. Property investors who recognize that early will benefit from the compounding advantages of growth, while those waiting for coastal cities to recover will watch opportunities slip away.
