AdvanceNC
A town of 1,408, settled in 1877.
Is Advance a good place to live?
The best of Advance’s subject grades is an A for incomes; the weakest is a D− for walkability. Only 32 of North Carolina’s 451 towns score lower on the outdoors. Good Hope Methodist Church Cemetery and Grimes-Crotts Mill is on the National Register of Historic Places. Advance has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade.
Advance has grown 32% from 2010 to 2020
1,138 counted in 2010 and 1,499 in 2020.
U.S. Census 2010 & 2020 counts
How Advance grades
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within North Carolina), ordered by how far Advance is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium and 20 more within 40 miles
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Advance. Close and well known come first.
15 mi Stadium & arenaAllegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium
13 mi MuseumOld Salem
28 mi MountainPilot Mountain
14 mi MuseumReynolda House Museum of American Art
18 mi MuseumNorth Carolina Transportation Museum
32 mi State parkHanging Rock State ParkPhoto credits
Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium: BobHWS, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Old Salem: David Bjorgen, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Pilot Mountain: Berean Hunter, CC BY-SA 2.5 · Reynolda House Museum of American Art: Zsrarticle, CC BY-SA 4.0 · North Carolina Transportation Museum: Unknown, Public domain · Hanging Rock State Park: Jacalyn Engler from Greensboro, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0
Moving to Advance: who provides what
Advance is unincorporated, so Davie County and regional agencies provide most services.
EPA SDWIS (Oct 9, 2026) · HIFLD + EIA-861 2025 · Census 2020 ZCTAs · NCES 2024–25 · registration: vote.gov, updated Nov 18, 2024.
The data
Ordered by what stands out in Advance.
Advance has 0.4 jobs for every working resident, so most commute out
Among residents in Advance, 5% live below the poverty line. Most working residents leave Advance for work: only 1% work in town. Employers in Advance added 29 jobs between 2013 and 2023, to 258. For Advance, the typical household income is $115,000.
| Advance | North Carolina towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $115,000 | $69,000 | $80,000 |
| Average trip to work | 31 minutes | 24 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Below the poverty line | 5% | 13% | 9.6% |
| Working residents who work in town | 1.1% | 6.8% | 8% |
Where working residents work
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Advance’s public schools outperform 63% of North Carolina districts
One of its 2 schools is below, with the reason it’s listed. The Davie County Schools runs its public schools. Also worth knowing: the 2 public schools in Advance teach 929 students between them.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shady Grove ElementaryLargest public elementary schoolGrades PK–5 | Grades PK–5 | 492 | A |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within NC on state tests and graduation
Advance ranks healthier than 71% of the country’s towns
The share of adults in Advance who report frequent mental distress: 16%. The town beats the North Carolina average on 6 of 32 CDC measures and trails it on 2. Just over a quarter of adults in the town have been diagnosed with depression; 11% worry about having enough food.
| Advance | North Carolina towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sleep under 7 hours (CDC PLACES) | 32% | 34% | 36% |
| Depression (CDC PLACES) | 26% | 25% | 23% |
| Food insecurity (CDC PLACES) | 11% | 15% | 14% |
| Feel lonely (CDC PLACES) | 31% | 33% | 33% |
| What stands out | Advance | NC |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer adults facing food insecurity | 10.6% | 15.2% |
| Fewer adults facing a utility shut-off | 5.7% | 8.1% |
| More adults who have had cancer | 9.7% | 7.9% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Advance’s typical home value is about $413K
Advance: four in five households own their home, above both the North Carolina town median (67%) and the median of U.S. towns (73%). For Advance, the median rent is $819 a month. In the year to September 2026, typical home values climbed 2.3%. On the market in the town: a median 257 days to sell.
| Advance | North Carolina towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 80% | 67% | 73% |
| Median rent | $819 a month | $1,085 a month | $1,185 a month |
Typical home value
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Advance has mild winters and hot summers
Expect July afternoons of 88° and January nights of 28°, with about 3 inches of snow a winter.
Typical low → high °F
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
0% of Advance is conserved land
1.0 miles of trail. Advance’s trail network density stands at 0.1 miles per square mile, close to North Carolina’s towns (0.2) and below U.S. towns (0.4).
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Natural hazards: moderate risk in Advance, mostly inland flooding
FEMA expects more storm and flood damage in Advance than in half of U.S. communities. Of the losses FEMA expects in the town, 67% come from inland flooding and 8% from cold waves.
FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
Everything we know about Advance
Colleges nearby
7 within 15 miles of the center of Advance
About 8 of every 100 Advance residents are enrolled in college, against 6 across North Carolina.
1,408 people, and everyone knows the way
In a town this size, neighbors are the best guide. Ask them anything.
About Advance
Census-designated place in North Carolina, United States
Advance (pronounced AD-vance) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Davie County, North Carolina, United States. It is 75 miles northeast of Charlotte, with the northern outskirts of Advance in proximity to Winston-Salem. The population was 1,499 at the 2020 census. It is located along North Carolina Highway 801, south of Bermuda Run. Advance is part of the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
- Area
- 7.2 sq mi
- Elevation
- 830 ft
- ZIP code
- 27006
Questions about Advance
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Is Advance, NC expensive?
That is 6.3 years of the area's median household income ($65,975 across the Winston-Salem, NC metro area). Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades B.
What is Advance, NC known for?
2 notable people were born here, including Chris Perry and Jeremy Walker.