Denver, North Carolina

Denver carries a high entry cost: Zillow’s typical home value is $558,659.08, with a median sale price of $578,333.33 and median list price of $580,483.33 across 263 homes for sale. Homes are selling at a 0.996 sale-to-list ratio, essentially at asking price, indicating a tight, competitive housing market (median days to pending was not published).

Before evaluating returns, prospective buyers need to understand a hard supply constraint: Lincoln County’s STR ordinance (Ordinance 523) divides the unincorporated county into 7 regions and caps STR licenses in each, reducing the countywide ceiling from roughly 505 existing licenses to about 181. Several lake-adjacent regions, including areas around Denver, are already over their cap, so no new STR licenses are being issued there until the count falls below the cap through attrition. This means a newly purchased property in an over-cap zone may not be able to obtain an STR license at all, a critical factor that outweighs any rate or occupancy math for a buyer planning to operate a new short-term rental.

For listings that do hold a license, the economics are strong: rate tiers show the all-listing ADR at $643.46 rising to $1,126.48 for professionally managed listings and $1,246.77 for the luxury tier, nearly double the market average. Using the reported market average revenue of $11,060.87 per month ($132,730.44 annualized) against the $558,659.08 typical home value produces a computed gross yield of approximately 23.8%, before financing, fees, taxes, insurance, and vacancy, and before accounting for whether a license is obtainable at all. Market-score data that would otherwise contextualize investability and revenue growth is currently only available as a shared regional rollup with a neighboring Lake Norman community rather than a Denver-specific figure, so it is omitted here; the licensing freeze above is the more decision-relevant factor regardless.