Auburn, Alabama.
Typical home $421,396 (+4.1% in a year), asking rent $1,681 (+5.8%). Auburn-Opelika, AL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,188 (+116%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,723 +4%
- $404,673$421,396 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $95,092 +29%
- $326,304$421,396 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Auburn$2,212
- Alabama$1,252
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Auburn, AL rose 4.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Auburn, AL rose 5.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Auburn runs $1,150/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,225 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,831 a month against $1,681 rent: a $2,212 mortgage payment, plus $168 property tax and $451 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Auburn
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$2,831
- Renting$1,681
- Mortgage only$2,212
Property tax · $168/mo 0.48% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Lee County, AL
Insurance & upkeep · $451/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Auburn, Lee County, Alabama
Auburn is a city of 76,143 people in Lee County. Half its households earn more than $63,668 a year and half less, against $65,824 across Lee County; 25% of its people live below the poverty line. 53% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 47% are rented. Unemployment in Auburn was 3.4% in August 2026, and Lee County had 2.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Auburn is a college city, and it shows in who lives there: residents are far younger than in most American towns, and more of them rent than across much of the state. A large share of adults hold a four-year degree, and household incomes sit a little below the county's. Winters are mild and short, with a January that stays cool but seldom snowy, and summers run hot and wet, with rain falling through much of the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, with professional services and manufacturing close behind. The biggest employers in town include Auburn City Schools, Donghee America, which assembles gas tanks for vehicles, and Walmart. Unemployment is a little higher than it was a year ago, while across Lee County there are more jobs than the year before, and most people get to work in a short drive.
Things to do. Jordan–Hare Stadium, the home of Auburn football, is in town, as are the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art and the Donald E. Davis Arboretum, a botanical garden. Chewacla State Park is a short drive away for walking and time outdoors. Farther out, the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site is a museum and a longer drive away.
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- 30,174households
- 64%of adults have a degree
- 25%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lee County had 68,299 jobs in 2025, 2.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 35°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 71°. About 1 inches of snow and 56 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Auburn No.2 weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Auburn
- Auburn City SchoolsSchool district930FTE
- Donghee AmericaGas tanks assembled, automotive, truck, and bus, manufacturing424
- Seohan Auto / Seohan NTN USAMotor vehicle parts and accessories, new, merchant wholesalers362
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters345
- Integrated Manufacturing Auburn307
- SCA AutotechMotor vehicle trimmings manufacturing250
- Publix Super MarketsSupermarkets and other grocery stores212
- Publix Super MarketsSupermarkets and other grocery stores206
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 55 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,938 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- LightningRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Auburn’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Lee County and the Auburn-Opelika, AL metro.
Auburn home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Auburn$421,396
- Alabama$238,614
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Auburn listings, and the typical home goes pending in 41 days — the market is roughly in balance.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Auburn22.67%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Auburn41
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Auburn481
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Auburn112
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Auburn$388,742
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Auburn98.24%
Zip codes with a Auburn address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Auburn — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Auburn
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36830 | Auburn | 49,292 | $1,780 | $432,568 |
| 36832 | Auburn | 30,959 | $1,427 | $380,520 |