Apartment living is, by nature, a more cramped living arrangement than a typical house. But not all apartments are created equal, and that doesn't just apply to which floorplan you might choose. The city you're residing in is also linked to the size of apartments.
So how do apartments in Wilmington stack up against other major U.S. metros?
If you live in an apartment or plan to, Wilmington might be one of the best places in the country to do so, at least when it comes to roominess. A new study from RentCafe found that new apartments in Wilmington were some of the largest on average in all of the United States.
Not only that -- the Port City was one of only a handful of the top cities for apartment size where new apartments have actually gotten
bigger over the past decade.
How big are apartments in Wilmington?
RentCafe examined apartment sizes in the 100 largest cities in the U.S.
According to the study, the average size of new apartments in Wilmington was 1,014 square feet in 2025, over 100 square feet more than the national average.
Compared to other major U.S. cities, Wilmington has the 8th largest average apartment size.
As for North Carolina, Wilmington is behind only one other city, and just barely. Greensboro had an apartment size of 1,017 square feet.
Apartments are getting bigger
New apartment sizes increased nationally in 2025 -- but they're still smaller on average than they were in 2016.
But not in Wilmington, where new apartments are ever so slightly larger than a decade ago. Out of the top 20 cities with the largest new apartments, Wilmington was one of only three to see an increase in size over this period.
This isn't purely a product of the type of apartments being built. In fact, over the past 10 years, Wilmington has been moving away from large apartments. According to RentCafe, 41% of the new supply are one-bedrooms, up from 31% a decade ago. Meanwhile, the share of three-bedrooms has fallen from 20% to 10%.
North Carolina cities ranked by apartment size
Here are the largest N.C. cities in RentCafe's dataset ranked by size.
- Greensboro: 1,017 square feet
- Wilmington: 1,014 square feet
- Raleigh: 930 square feet
- Charlotte: 925 square feet
- Durham: 922 square feet
Charlie Kingree is the trending topics and Pender County reporter for the StarNews. He can be reached at ckingree@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Study shows how Wilmington apartments compare in size with other cities
