Columbia, South Carolina.
Typical home $227,148 (+0.9% in a year), asking rent $1,500 (+2.8%). Columbia, SC metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$663 (+125%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,059 +1%
- $225,089$227,148 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $51,210 +29%
- $175,939$227,148 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.
- Columbia$1,192
- South Carolina$1,597
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Columbia, SC rose 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Columbia, SC rose 2.8% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Owning the typical home in Columbia runs $63/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $295 in Sep 2021.
That is $1,563 a month against $1,500 rent: a $1,192 mortgage payment, plus $128 property tax and $243 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Columbia
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$1,563
- Renting$1,500
- Mortgage only$1,192
Property tax · $128/mo 0.67% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Richland County, SC
Insurance & upkeep · $243/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 Columbia, Richland County, South Carolina
Columbia is a city of 136,632 people in Richland County. Half its households earn more than $55,529 a year and half less, against $63,784 across Richland County; 24% of its people live below the poverty line. 46% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 54% are rented. Unemployment in Columbia was 4.7% in August 2026, and Richland County had 0.7% 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. Columbia is the capital city of South Carolina, and its people skew young, with a median age well below what is typical for the country. Fewer homes are lived in by their owners than renters' homes, and household incomes sit below the county's as a whole. A good share of adults hold a four-year degree, and winters are mild, with little or no snow and plenty of rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, with professional and business services and shops also employing a lot of people. Among the largest workplaces in Columbia are Richland 01 Schools, the SC Department of Transportation and Prisma Health Richland Hospital. Commutes are fairly short, and jobs across Richland County have grown only slightly over the past year.
Things to do. A short drive away, Riverbanks Zoo and the Columbia Museum of Art make easy places to spend an afternoon, and the W. Gordon Belser Arboretum offers a botanical garden to walk through. For a longer outing, Congaree National Park is a national park a longer drive away.
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- 53,076households
- 46%of adults have a degree
- 24%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Richland County had 229,383 jobs in 2025, 0.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 33°; warmest in July, with highs near 92° and lows near 71°. About 46 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Sandhill Rsch - Elgin weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Columbia
- Richland 01 SchoolsSchool district4,436FTE
- SC Department of TransportationTransportation safety programs, government3,939
- Prisma Health Richland HospitalGeneral hospital3,381FTE
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs2,607
- SC Public Charter School DistrictSchool district2,524FTE
- Charter Institute at Erskine SchoolsSchool district2,394FTE
- Richland County GovernmentExecutive and legislative office combinations2,219
- AramarkFood service contractors1,025
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 97 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 17,992 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- Ice stormsrelatively high in parts of ColumbiaRelatively moderate
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of ColumbiaRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Columbia’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 Richland County and the Columbia, SC metro.
Columbia home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Columbia$227,148
- South Carolina$304,319
- 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 Columbia listings, and the typical home goes pending in 30 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Columbia31.83%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Columbia30
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Columbia1,438
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Columbia387
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Columbia$231,387
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Columbia97.94%
Zip codes with a Columbia address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Columbia — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Columbia
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29223 | Columbia | 53,074 | $1,464 | $220,013 |
| 29229 | Columbia | 51,861 | $1,788 | $264,823 |
| 29203 | Columbia | 40,653 | $1,385 | $131,030 |
| 29210 | Columbia | 39,962 | $1,161 | $195,487 |
| 29209 | Columbia | 38,041 | $1,537 | $223,333 |
| 29212 | Columbia | 27,657 | $1,616 | $276,392 |
| 29201 | Columbia | 24,605 | $1,959 | $241,084 |
| 29205 | Columbia | 22,223 | $1,745 | $312,174 |
| 29206 | Columbia | 19,759 | $1,497 | $390,950 |
| 29204 | Columbia | 18,159 | $1,462 | $188,568 |
| 29044 | Eastover | 4,799 | — | $95,918 |