Granville County, North Carolina Eviction Risk: Low

Granville County carries an average eviction-risk score of 2.7/10 (Low) across its 5 incorporated cities, placing it at rank 25 of 100 North Carolina counties, where rank 1 is the highest-risk. That means 24 counties in the state are riskier for landlords, and 75 are less risky, putting Granville firmly in the higher-risk third of North Carolina. For landlords and investors evaluating the market, that position calls for careful tenant screening and a clear understanding of state-law timelines before committing capital.

The county's average rent of $1,115 per month and an average rent burden of 28% of income suggest most renters are stretching but not catastrophically so. Even so, a poverty rate of 17.8% and a renter share of 33.7% of households signal that a meaningful slice of the tenant pool is financially vulnerable. Those underlying conditions translate directly into eviction-risk exposure, and they vary considerably by city across the county's 1.1 points of score range, from a low of 4.2 to a high of 5.3.

The cities inside Granville County

Oxford leads the county in risk with a score of 2.8/10 and a population of 8,065, making it the second-largest city in Granville County but the highest-risk address for landlords. Oxford, the county's largest city at 8,914 residents, sits just behind at 5.2/10, reflecting the concentration of lower-income renters that typically comes with a county seat serving a broad rural catchment. Both cities warrant conservative underwriting, tighter move-in criteria, and reserves sized for a contested proceeding.

Creedmoor offers a noticeably calmer picture at 2.6/10, and the two smallest communities, Stovall at 2.7/10 and Stem at 2/10, represent the lowest-risk end of the county's spectrum. These scores are a reminder that eviction risk is hyper-local: a property on one side of the county line can carry meaningfully different default exposure than one across town. Investors comparing markets should treat city-level scores, not just county averages, as the operative figure.

State-level laws that apply here

Under North Carolina state law governed by N.C.G.S. § 42 (Landlord and Tenant), the required notice period for nonpayment of rent is 10 days per N.C. Gen. Stat. § 42-3. Lease violations and holdover tenancies require no advance notice before filing, while a month-to-month tenancy termination requires only 7 days of notice under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 42-14. Those short windows are among the more landlord-favorable procedural rules in the Southeast. Reviewing the full North Carolina eviction process is worthwhile before relying on those timelines, because contested cases can still stretch to 45 to 100 days even when notice requirements are brief.

Court filing fees run $150 to $200, sheriff lockout fees add $30 to $125, and attorney fees for a contested case typically fall in the $500 to $2,500 range, all under state schedule. North Carolina does not require just cause to terminate a tenancy, and the state preempts any local rent-control ordinance, so landlords operating in Granville County face no local rent caps. For a complete breakdown of what a removal actually costs, the North Carolina eviction costs guide covers the full fee schedule in detail. Source-of-income is not a protected class under state law, and the North Carolina Human Relations Commission handles fair-housing enforcement.

With 17.8% of residents living below the poverty line and roughly 1 in 3 households renting, Granville County's county-wide Moderate score masks real city-to-city variation; review the individual city scores in the grid above before selecting a submarket.