Cabarrus County, North Carolina Eviction Risk: Low

Cabarrus County scores 2.6/10 (Low risk) on the eviction-risk index, placing it at rank 79 of 100 North Carolina eviction laws counties, meaning 78 counties in the state carry higher risk and only 21 are more landlord-friendly. For investors evaluating this market, that positions Cabarrus County comfortably in the lower-risk third of North Carolina, a meaningful advantage in a state where urban cores can push scores considerably higher.

The county's 30.9% renter share and 9% poverty rate underpin that relatively stable reading, and the average rent of $1,510 sits at a rent-burden level of 30%, right at the threshold where tenants begin to feel strain. Across the county's 6 cities, though, risk is not uniform: scores range from 2.3 to 2.7, a spread wide enough that city selection matters as much as county selection.

The cities inside Cabarrus County

Kannapolis is the highest-risk city in the county, scoring 2.7/10, and with a population of 57,890 it is also the second-largest market in Cabarrus County. That combination, a sizeable renter pool and the county's top risk score, means landlords operating there face materially different conditions than the county average suggests. Midland (2.3/10) and Locust (2.6/10) also sit above the county average, with Midland's smaller population of 4,860 and Locust's 5,840 residents meaning those markets are thinner but still carry elevated scores relative to the rest of the county.

At the other end, Concord, the county seat and by far the largest city at 108,719 residents, scores 3.2/10, the lowest in the county. Harrisburg (2.3/10, population 19,633) and Mount Pleasant (2.4/10, population 2,230) round out the middle tier. Risk here is genuinely hyper-local: a landlord with properties in Concord eviction risk operates in a substantially different environment than one with units in Kannapolis eviction risk, even though both cities sit inside the same county boundary.

State-level laws that apply here

All landlords in Cabarrus County operate under N.C.G.S. § 42 (Landlord and Tenant). For nonpayment of rent, North Carolina eviction laws state law requires a 10-day notice under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 42-3, while holdover tenants and those in material breach of lease can be served immediately with no mandatory cure period. Month-to-month tenancies require only a 7-day termination notice under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 42-14. Understanding the full North Carolina eviction laws eviction process matters here because even an uncontested case runs 21 to 45 days, and a contested filing can stretch to 45 to 100 days.

When it comes to North Carolina eviction costs, landlords should budget for court filing fees of $150 to $200, sheriff lockout fees of $30 to $125, and attorney fees typically ranging from $500 to $2,500. On the regulatory side, North Carolina eviction laws does not require just cause for eviction, and state law preempts any local rent-control ordinance, so there are no city-level rent caps to navigate inside Cabarrus County.

With a 9% poverty rate and 30.9% of households renting, Cabarrus County's fundamentals are among the more stable in North Carolina, though the city-by-city grid above shows that the gap between Concord and Kannapolis is large enough to drive meaningfully different portfolio outcomes depending on where you hold property.