Buford, Georgia.
Typical home $464,885 (-2.3% in a year), asking rent $2,120 (+0.9%). Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta, GA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,351 (+124%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $10,884 -2%
- $475,770$464,885 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $80,078 +21%
- $384,808$464,885 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.
- Buford$2,440
- Georgia$1,727
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Buford, GA fell 2.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Buford, GA rose 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Buford runs $1,185/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,448 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,306 a month against $2,120 rent: a $2,440 mortgage payment, plus $368 property tax and $498 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Buford
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$3,306
- Renting$2,120
- Mortgage only$2,440
Property tax · $368/mo 0.95% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Gwinnett County, GA
Insurance & upkeep · $498/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 Buford, Gwinnett County, Georgia
Buford is a city of 17,144 people in Gwinnett County. Half its households earn more than $69,471 a year and half less, against $87,890 across Gwinnett County; 13% of its people live below the poverty line. 68% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 32% are rented. Unemployment in Gwinnett County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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. Buford is a city in Gwinnett County, a place of mostly younger residents, with a median age well below what many older readers may expect. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though a good number of households rent, and incomes run below the county's overall. Winters are mild and rarely snowy, summers are hot, and rain falls steadily through the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in shops, and in manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in Buford are Buford City Schools, UPS and Walmart. Gwinnett County has added jobs over the past year, and unemployment there is a little lower than it was a year earlier. The typical commute is a moderate one, and a fair number of residents work from home.
Things to do. Lake Lanier, a reservoir, is a short drive away, as is George Pierce Park for a walk outdoors. Road Atlanta, a race track, is also a short drive away. The Gwinnett Environmental & Heritage Center, a museum, is close by too.
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- 5,356households
- 29%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 14%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Gwinnett County had 390,169 jobs in 2025, 0.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 51° and lows near 31°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 67°. About 1 inches of snow and 56 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cumming 2N weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Buford
- Buford City SchoolsSchool district672FTE
- UPSCouriers and express delivery services662
- Tech SystemsSecurity alarm systems sales combined with installation, repair, or monitoring services544
- O'Reilly Auto Parts411
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters326
- Certina GroupMotor vehicle metal parts stamping290
- ScanfilFilters, electronic component-type, manufacturing250
- Cardinal CG0243
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 63 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 7,688 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
- TornadoesRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of BufordRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Buford’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 Gwinnett County and the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta, GA metro.
Buford home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Buford$464,885
- Georgia$329,115
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Buford listings, and the typical home goes pending in 48 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.
- Buford34.01%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Buford48
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Buford485
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Buford108
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Buford$443,964
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Buford97.62%
Zip codes with a Buford address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Buford — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Buford
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30519 | Buford | 59,997 | $2,087 | $454,814 |
| 30518 | Buford | 57,912 | $2,043 | $453,284 |