Cottondale, Alabama.
Typical home $199,730 (-1.2% in a year). Tuscaloosa, AL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$417 (+66%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $2,505 -1%
- $202,235$199,730 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $365 +0%
- $199,366$199,730 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.
- Cottondale$1,048
- Alabama$1,252
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Cottondale, AL fell 1.2% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Cottondale, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama
Cottondale, in Tuscaloosa County, had 3,130 people in the 2020 census. 82% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 18% are rented. Unemployment in Tuscaloosa County was 3.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.7% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Tuscaloosa County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Cottondale is a small community in Tuscaloosa County, and nearly everyone who lives there owns their home. Homes are valued well below what is typical for the country as a whole, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are mild and short, with the coldest weather in January, while summers are hot and the year brings a good deal of rain.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels. The biggest workplaces across Tuscaloosa County include The University of Alabama, Mercedes Benz US. International and DCH Regional Medical Center. Jobs across the county have slipped slightly over the past year, and unemployment there is a little higher than it was a year earlier. The typical commute is a moderate one, and few people work from home.
Things to do. The University of Alabama Arboretum, a botanical garden, lies in or beside town. A short drive away are the Alabama Museum of Natural History and North River, and Bryant–Denny Stadium is also close by. Moundville Archaeological Site is a longer drive away for a day out.
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- 15%of adults have a degree
- 23 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What people in Tuscaloosa County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Tuscaloosa County had 98,620 jobs in 2025, 0.7% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 35°; warmest in July, with highs near 92° and lows near 71°. About 57 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Northport South weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Tuscaloosa County
- The University of AlabamaUniversity or college7,472
- Mercedes Benz US. InternationalLight utility trucks assembling on chassis of own manufacture6,029
- DCH Regional Medical CenterGeneral hospital3,252FTE
- Tuscaloosa County SchoolsSchool district1,851FTE
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs1,176
- Tuscaloosa City SchoolsSchool district1,162FTE
- Lear Corporation - TuscaloosaAutomotive supplier803
- Bryce HospitalPsychiatric hospital705FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 136 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 22,477 people in all across the county; Cottondale has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Heat wavesrelatively high in parts of CottondaleRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively 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 Cottondale’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 Tuscaloosa County and the Tuscaloosa, AL metro.
Cottondale home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Cottondale$199,730
- Alabama$238,614
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Cottondale listings — 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.
- Cottondale22.78%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Cottondale29
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Cottondale7
Zip codes with a Cottondale address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Cottondale — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.