Fairfield, Alabama.
Typical home $93,223 (-2.1% in a year), asking rent $1,177 . Birmingham-Hoover, AL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$208 (+74%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $2,040 -2%
- $95,263$93,223 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $10,622 -10%
- $103,845$93,223 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.
- Fairfield$489
- Alabama$1,252
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Fairfield, AL fell 2.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Fairfield, Jefferson County, Alabama
Fairfield is a city of 10,000 people in Jefferson County. 59% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 41% are rented. Unemployment in Jefferson County was 3.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Fairfield is a city in Jefferson County, close to Birmingham, and its residents are younger than in much of the country. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though a good number of households rent. Typical home values and rents sit at a modest level, and more residents live below the poverty line than is typical across the county.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in restaurants and hotels, in shops, and in banks, insurance and property. Across Jefferson County, the University of Alabama Hospital, Children's Hospital of Alabama and Jefferson County Schools are among the largest workplaces. Commutes are of middling length, and a small group of residents work from home.
Things to do. Several well-known Birmingham places are a short drive away, including Sloss Furnaces, a museum built around an old ironworks, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the Birmingham Zoo. For a day outdoors, Red Mountain Park is a garden-style park nearby, and Barber Motorsports Park, a race track, is a longer drive. Winters are mild and rarely bring snow, summers are hot, and rain falls through the year.
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- 3,744households
- 25%of adults have a degree
- 32%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Jefferson County had 368,875 jobs in 2025, 0.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 34°; warmest in July, with highs near 92° and lows near 70°. About 1 inches of snow and 55 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Bessemer Wsw weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Jefferson County
- University of Alabama HospitalGeneral hospital11,411FTE
- UA Health Services FoundationCommunity health centers and clinics, outpatient5,637
- THE Children's Hospital of AlabamaChildren's hospital4,552FTE
- Brasfield & Gorrie Corporate OfficeCommercial building construction4,447
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage3,660
- Jefferson County SchoolsSchool district3,404FTE
- Southern Foodservice ManagementCafeteria food services contractors2,670
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs2,665
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 623 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 101,368 people in all across the county; Fairfield has two of its own. Hospitals come 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
- TornadoesVery high
- LightningRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Fairfield’s 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 Jefferson County and the Birmingham-Hoover, AL metro.
Fairfield home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Fairfield$93,223
- Alabama$238,614
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Fairfield 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.
- Fairfield19.60%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Fairfield42
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Fairfield10
Zip codes with a Fairfield address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Fairfield — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.