Gainesville, Florida.
Typical home $291,789 (-1.3% in a year), asking rent $1,618 (+1.9%). Gainesville, FL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$776 (+103%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,696 -1%
- $295,485$291,789 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $40,073 +16%
- $251,716$291,789 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.
- Gainesville$1,532
- Florida$1,970
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 23 years.
Typical home values in Gainesville, FL fell 1.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Gainesville, FL rose 1.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Gainesville runs $459/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $700 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,077 a month against $1,618 rent: a $1,532 mortgage payment, plus $233 property tax and $312 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Gainesville
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$2,077
- Renting$1,618
- Mortgage only$1,532
Property tax · $233/mo 0.96% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Alachua County, FL
Insurance & upkeep · $312/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 Gainesville, Alachua County, Florida
Gainesville is a city of 141,085 people in Alachua County. Half its households earn more than $46,195 a year and half less, against $61,949 across Alachua County; 31% of its people live below the poverty line. 38% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 62% are rented. Unemployment in Gainesville was 6.3% in August 2026, and Alachua County had 1.3% 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. Gainesville is a college city, and it feels like one: its residents are much younger than in most American towns, and a large share of adults hold a four-year degree. Most people rent rather than own, and household incomes sit below the county's, with a good many residents living below the poverty line. Homes cost a fair amount to buy or rent, and the daily trip to work is short.
Work. Hospitals, schools and social care employ more residents than anything else, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, shops, and professional and business services. The biggest workplaces in Gainesville include UF Health Shands, Alachua Schools and the Veterans Health Administration. Unemployment has edged up over the past year, though across Alachua County there were slightly more jobs last year than the year before.
Things to do. The Florida Museum of Natural History and the Harn Museum of Art are both a short drive away, and Lake Alice is in or beside town for a walk by the water. Paynes Prairie, a protected area, is also a short drive away. Winters are mild and summers hot, with little or no snow and a fair amount of rain through the year, so time outdoors is possible in most seasons.
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- 59,816households
- 54%of adults have a degree
- 31%below the poverty line
- 19 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Alachua County had 140,869 jobs in 2025, 1.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 67° and lows near 43°; warmest in July, with highs near 91° and lows near 72°. About 48 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Gainesville Regional Airport weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest employers in Gainesville
- University of Florida17,867
- Shands Teaching Hospital12,317
- Alachua County School District4,007
- US Department of Veterans Affairs3,820
- Publix2,801
- City of Gainesville2,334
- Walmart2,296
- North Florida Regional Medical Center2,214
From the City of Gainesville’s annual financial report for 2025, its schedule of principal employers (its source: “of top employers in Alachua County published by FL Commerce in the floridajobs.org database”), as Florida’s Auditor General publishes it: the report. Employees as the report counts them.
Natural hazards
- HurricanesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively 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 Gainesville’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 Alachua County and the Gainesville, FL metro.
Gainesville home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Gainesville$291,789
- Florida$375,361
- 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 Gainesville listings, and the typical home goes pending in 38 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.
- Gainesville27.29%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Gainesville38
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Gainesville965
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Gainesville215
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Gainesville$285,423
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Gainesville96.64%
Zip codes with a Gainesville address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Gainesville — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Gainesville
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32608 | Gainesville | 54,566 | $1,569 | $330,256 |
| 32607 | Gainesville | 35,720 | $1,517 | $282,592 |
| 32605 | Gainesville | 24,689 | $1,856 | $298,466 |
| 32601 | Gainesville | 23,180 | $1,433 | $258,852 |
| 32606 | Gainesville | 23,022 | $1,768 | $338,588 |
| 32609 | Gainesville | 19,752 | $1,438 | $215,629 |
| 32653 | Gainesville | 15,150 | $1,825 | $319,946 |
| 32641 | Gainesville | 13,963 | $1,481 | $173,709 |
| 32603 | Gainesville | 7,419 | — | $416,764 |