Birmingham, Alabama.
Typical home $134,165 (-2.4% in a year), asking rent $1,305 (+2.9%). Birmingham-Hoover, AL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$330 (+88%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,300 -2%
- $137,465$134,165 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $6,783 -5%
- $140,948$134,165 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.
- Birmingham$704
- Alabama$1,252
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Birmingham, AL fell 2.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Birmingham, AL rose 2.9% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Owning the typical home in Birmingham runs $392/mo less than renting one. The gap peaked at $470 in Sep 2020.
That is $913 a month against $1,305 rent: a $704 mortgage payment, plus $66 property tax and $144 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Birmingham
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$913
- Renting$1,305
- Mortgage only$704
Property tax · $66/mo 0.59% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Jefferson County, AL
Insurance & upkeep · $144/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 Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama
Birmingham is a city of 200,733 people in Jefferson County. Half its households earn more than $46,051 a year and half less, against $66,388 across Jefferson County; 25% of its people live below the poverty line. 46% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 54% are rented. Unemployment in Birmingham was 4.5% in August 2026, and Jefferson County had 0.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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. Birmingham is the largest city in Jefferson County, and its population is young for a city of its size. Incomes here run well below the county's as a whole, and poverty is more common than in the county overall. Fewer homes are lived in by their owners than are rented, and typical home values are modest while rents are not low.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, professional and business services, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Hospitals are among the biggest employers in the city, including the University of Alabama Hospital and Children's of Alabama. Unemployment is a little higher than a year ago, and the county has added only a few more jobs than the year before. The typical commute is short, and relatively few people work from home.
Things to do. Several well-known places sit in or beside town: the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Birmingham Zoo, and Sloss Furnaces, which is run as a museum. The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument is also in town, and Barber Motorsports Park, a race track, is a longer drive away. Winters are cool with very little snow, summers are hot, and rain falls throughout the year, so outdoor visits suit most seasons.
Report a mistake
- 88,788households
- 31%of adults have a degree
- 25%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Jefferson County had 368,875 jobs in 2025, 0.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 54° and lows near 35°; warmest in July, with highs near 91° and lows near 72°. About 1 inches of snow and 57 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Birmingham Airport weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Birmingham
- University of Alabama HospitalGeneral hospital11,411FTE
- UA Health Services FoundationCommunity health centers and clinics, outpatient5,637
- THE Children's Hospital of AlabamaChildren's hospital4,552FTE
- Brasfield & Gorrie Corporate OfficeCommercial building construction4,447
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs2,665
- Grandview Medical CenterGeneral hospital2,132FTE
- Birmingham City SchoolsSchool district1,972FTE
- Social Security AdministrationFederal government1,758
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 259 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 48,305 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026) and school districts 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
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of BirminghamRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesrelatively high in parts of BirminghamRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of BirminghamRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Birmingham’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 Jefferson County and the Birmingham-Hoover, AL metro.
Birmingham home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Birmingham$134,165
- Alabama$238,614
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Birmingham listings, and the typical home goes pending in 24 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.
- Birmingham23.92%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Birmingham24
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Birmingham1,378
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Birmingham331
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Birmingham$162,807
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Birmingham97.11%
Zip codes with a Birmingham address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Birmingham — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Birmingham
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35242 | Birmingham | 57,374 | $1,656 | $565,170 |
| 35211 | Birmingham | 24,924 | $1,340 | $73,479 |
| 35235 | Birmingham | 20,526 | $1,414 | $185,312 |
| 35205 | Birmingham | 18,858 | $1,067 | $227,114 |
| 35206 | Birmingham | 15,621 | $1,108 | $99,980 |
| 35208 | Birmingham | 13,412 | $1,128 | $75,427 |
| 35212 | Birmingham | 10,160 | $1,218 | $115,880 |
| 35204 | Birmingham | 8,953 | $1,038 | $70,260 |
| 35222 | Birmingham | 8,361 | $1,354 | $393,070 |
| 35207 | Birmingham | 7,709 | — | $57,575 |
| 35218 | Birmingham | 6,981 | $1,067 | $71,332 |
| 35234 | Birmingham | 3,879 | — | $91,235 |
| 35233 | Birmingham | 3,570 | $1,605 | $302,968 |
| 35203 | Birmingham | 3,506 | $1,384 | $315,376 |
| 35130 | Quinton | 3,202 | — | $112,157 |
| 35221 | Birmingham | 3,119 | — | $58,262 |
| 35061 | Dolomite | 1,554 | — | $99,266 |