Florence, Alabama.
Typical home $214,156 (+2.7% in a year), asking rent $1,202 (+3.2%). Florence-Muscle Shoals, AL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$602 (+115%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,727 +3%
- $208,429$214,156 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $40,436 +23%
- $173,720$214,156 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.
- Florence$1,124
- Alabama$1,252
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Florence, AL rose 2.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Florence, AL rose 3.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Florence runs $218/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $303 in Nov 2023.
That is $1,421 a month against $1,202 rent: a $1,124 mortgage payment, plus $67 property tax and $229 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Florence
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$1,421
- Renting$1,202
- Mortgage only$1,124
Property tax · $67/mo 0.38% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Lauderdale County, AL
Insurance & upkeep · $229/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 Florence, Lauderdale County, Alabama
Florence is a city of 40,184 people in Lauderdale County. Half its households earn more than $52,174 a year and half less, against $62,649 across Lauderdale County; 18% of its people live below the poverty line. 52% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 48% are rented. Unemployment in Florence was 4.4% in August 2026, and Lauderdale County had 0.5% 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. Florence is a city in northwest Alabama, in Lauderdale County, with a population that is younger than in many American towns. Incomes here run below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than most would expect, though homes are only slightly more often owned than rented. Fewer adults hold a four-year degree than not, and most people have a short drive to work. Winters are mild and cool, summers are hot, and the year brings plenty of rain.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, restaurants and hotels, and manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in Florence are North Alabama Medical Center, Florence City Schools and Southwire. Unemployment has risen compared with a year ago, while the county's job count has edged up slightly.
Things to do. Wilson Lake, a reservoir in or beside town, is close at hand, and Cox Creek runs nearby as well. A short drive away, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio is a museum tied to the area's music history, and Key Cave National Wildlife Refuge is a protected area for time outdoors.
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- 17,745households
- 34%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 19 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lauderdale County had 30,996 jobs in 2025, 0.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 50° and lows near 31°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 69°. About 58 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Muscle Shoals North weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Florence
- North Alabama Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,258FTE
- Florence City SchoolsSchool district448FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters392
- SouthwireCopper rolling, drawing, extruding, and alloying372
- American Wholesale Book CompanyBooks merchant wholesalers362
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters329
- Gemstone FoodsPoultry processing320
- PCH Hotels and ResortsHotels, resort, without casinos229
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 42 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 7,038 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively 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 Florence’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 Lauderdale County and the Florence-Muscle Shoals, AL metro.
Florence home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Florence$214,156
- Alabama$238,614
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Florence listings, and the typical home goes pending in 31 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.
- Florence29.96%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Florence31
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Florence321
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Florence84
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Florence$222,113
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Florence96.42%
Zip codes with a Florence address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Florence — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Florence
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35630 | Florence | 34,028 | $1,178 | $175,349 |
| 35633 | Florence | 20,813 | — | $238,989 |