Columbus, Mississippi.
Typical home $178,333 (+3.4% in a year), asking rent $1,371 (+3.6%). Columbus, MS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$431 (+85%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,914 +3%
- $172,419$178,333 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $22,612 +15%
- $155,721$178,333 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$936
- Mississippi$1,021
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 26 years.
Typical home values in Columbus, MS rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Columbus, MS rose 3.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Columbus runs $154/mo less than renting one. The gap peaked at $215 in Nov 2025.
That is $1,217 a month against $1,371 rent: a $936 mortgage payment, plus $90 property tax and $191 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$1,217
- Renting$1,371
- Mortgage only$936
Property tax · $90/mo 0.60% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Lowndes County, MS
Insurance & upkeep · $191/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, Lowndes County, Mississippi
Columbus is a city of 24,084 people in Lowndes County. Half its households earn more than $42,235 a year and half less, against $53,812 across Lowndes County; 21% of its people live below the poverty line. 48% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 52% are rented. Unemployment in Columbus was 4.1% in August 2026, and Lowndes County had 2.7% 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. Columbus is a small city in Lowndes County where most households rent rather than own, and incomes run below the county's as a whole. The population is somewhat older than the typical American community, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than the national picture would suggest. Winters are cool and short with little or no snow, summers are long and hot, and the year brings plenty of rain.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, manufacturing, and restaurants and hotels also employing large numbers. Among the largest workplaces in Columbus are Baptist MEM Hospital Golden Triangle, the Columbus Municipal School District and Mississippi University for Women. Unemployment has eased compared with a year earlier, and across Lowndes County the number of jobs has grown. Most people have a fairly short drive to work, and few work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away, Lake Lowndes State Park is a protected area for time outdoors, and Columbus Lake is a reservoir close by. Plymouth, an archaeological site, is also a short drive from town. The Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge, a larger protected area, is a longer drive for a day trip.
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- 10,006households
- 26%of adults have a degree
- 21%below the poverty line
- 19 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lowndes County had 26,162 jobs in 2025, 2.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 36°; warmest in July, with highs near 94° and lows near 73°. About 57 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Columbus weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Columbus
- Baptist MEM Hospital Golden TriangleGeneral hospital983FTE
- Columbus Municipal School DistSchool district546FTE
- Mississippi University for WomenUniversity or college451
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters364
- ABBMotor generator sets manufacturing303
- Windsor PlaceSkilled nursing facilities194
- Phillips ContractingHighway, street, and bridge construction149
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter134
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 25 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,489 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- TornadoesVery high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
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, relatively moderate. 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 Lowndes County and the Columbus, MS 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$178,333
- Mississippi$194,531
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Columbus listings, and the typical home goes pending in 34 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.
- Columbus27.73%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Columbus34
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Columbus220
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Columbus45
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Columbus$219,510
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Columbus96.06%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 39702 | Columbus | 23,484 | $1,321 | $178,744 |
| 39705 | Columbus | 12,552 | $1,756 | $230,251 |
| 39701 | Columbus | 11,958 | $1,177 | $110,049 |