Columbus, Georgia.
Typical home $175,906 (+3.1% in a year), asking rent $1,331 (+5.0%). Columbus, GA-AL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$517 (+127%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,262 +3%
- $170,645$175,906 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $41,003 +30%
- $134,903$175,906 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.
- Columbus$923
- Georgia$1,727
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Columbus, GA rose 3.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Columbus, GA rose 5.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Columbus runs $93/mo less than renting one. The gap peaked at $396 in Oct 2021.
That is $1,237 a month against $1,331 rent: a $923 mortgage payment, plus $125 property tax and $188 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Columbus
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$1,237
- Renting$1,331
- Mortgage only$923
Property tax · $125/mo 0.86% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Muscogee County, GA
Insurance & upkeep · $188/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 Columbus, Muscogee County, Georgia
Columbus is a city of 206,922 people in Muscogee County. Half its households earn more than $58,073 a year and half less, against $58,073 across Muscogee County; 19% of its people live below the poverty line. 51% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 49% are rented. Unemployment in Columbus was 4.2% in August 2026, and Muscogee County had 0.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then finance and property.
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. Columbus is a city on the Georgia side of the Chattahoochee valley, with a younger population than most of the country. Owners and renters share the city's homes fairly evenly, so renting is common, and the typical rent sits well above what many longtime owners once paid. Winters are mild, with chilly nights, and summers are hot, with rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and in banks, insurance and property, with shops, restaurants and hotels also employing a good number. Among the largest workplaces in Columbus are Muscogee County Schools, Piedmont Columbus Regional Midtown and Columbus State University. Most people have a fairly short commute, and the number of jobs has stayed close to flat from one year to the next.
Things to do. The Columbus Museum and the National Infantry Museum are both a short drive away, and the Springer Opera House, a theatre, is just as close. For a longer outing, the Little White House museum is a longer drive away. Several creeks nearby, such as Upatoi Creek, are a short drive from town.
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- 81,415households
- 30%of adults have a degree
- 19%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Muscogee County had 89,113 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 58° and lows near 33°; warmest in July, with highs near 92° and lows near 70°. About 52 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Columbus #2 weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Columbus
- Muscogee County SchoolsSchool district4,395FTE
- Piedmont Columbus Regional MidtownGeneral hospital2,046FTE
- St. Francis HospitalGeneral hospital1,521FTE
- Columbus State UniversityUniversity or college1,075
- West Central GA Regional HospitalPsychiatric hospital500FTE
- Piedmont Columbus Regional NorthsideGeneral hospital460FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters380
- Hostess Brands LLC- ColumbusCommercial bakeries350
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 111 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 13,998 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and colleges from IPEDS (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
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Columbus’ census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Muscogee County and the Columbus, GA-AL metro.
Columbus home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Columbus$175,906
- 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 4 Columbus listings, and the typical home goes pending in 19 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.
- Columbus24.44%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Columbus19
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Columbus718
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Columbus191
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Columbus$180,544
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Columbus96.88%
Zip codes with a Columbus address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Columbus — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Columbus
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31907 | Columbus | 59,110 | $1,276 | $161,807 |
| 31909 | Columbus | 39,364 | $1,490 | $235,605 |
| 31904 | Columbus | 35,405 | $1,401 | $219,267 |
| 31903 | Columbus | 20,644 | $1,006 | $72,034 |
| 31906 | Columbus | 20,400 | $1,068 | $133,119 |
| 31901 | Columbus | 5,841 | $1,282 | $162,069 |