Germantown, Tennessee.
Typical home $480,889 (-1.1% in a year), asking rent $2,319 (+6.2%). Memphis, TN-MS-AR metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,230 (+95%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $5,141 -1%
- $486,030$480,889 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $57,308 +14%
- $423,581$480,889 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.
- Germantown$2,524
- Tennessee$1,737
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 27 years.
Typical home values in Germantown, TN fell 1.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Germantown, TN rose 6.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Germantown runs $1,111/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,423 in Oct 2023.
That is $3,430 a month against $2,319 rent: a $2,524 mortgage payment, plus $391 property tax and $515 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Germantown
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$3,430
- Renting$2,319
- Mortgage only$2,524
Property tax · $391/mo 0.98% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Shelby County, TN
Insurance & upkeep · $515/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 Germantown, Shelby County, Tennessee
Germantown is a city of 41,333 people in Shelby County. Half its households earn more than $149,920 a year and half less, against $63,767 across Shelby County; 3% of its people live below the poverty line. 87% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 13% are rented. Unemployment in Germantown was 3.2% in August 2026, and Shelby County had 2.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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. Germantown is a suburban city in Shelby County, and it reads as a place where people settle in and stay. Most homes are lived in by their owners, with far more owners than across the county, and renting is less common. Household incomes run well above the county's, few residents live below the poverty line, and a four-year degree is common among adults. The population is older than in many US towns, and the winters are mild, with cool days in January, hot summers, and only a dusting of snow most years.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in banks, insurance and property, and in manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in Germantown are Germantown Schools, Kroger Delta KMA and TK Elevator Corp. Commutes are fairly typical, and a good number of people work from home. Unemployment is low, though Shelby County as a whole has seen job numbers dip over the past year.
Things to do. Closest to home is Oaklawn Garden, a botanical garden in or beside town. A short drive away, Shelby Farms is a large park for walking and time outdoors, and Dixon Gallery and Gardens is an art museum with grounds to stroll. For a longer outing, the Memphis Zoo and the National Civil Rights Museum are a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 15,568households
- 72%of adults have a degree
- 3%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 21%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Shelby County had 471,160 jobs in 2025, 2.3% fewer 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 92° and lows near 73°. About 2 inches of snow and 55 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Germantown 4SE weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Germantown
- Germantown SchoolsSchool district714FTE
- Kroger Delta KMASupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores184
- TK Elevator Corp - GermantownEstablishment primarily engaged in manufacturing elevators and moving stairways178
- TargetDiscount department stores178
- Brookdale Dogwood CreekAssisted-living facilities with on-site nursing facilities158
- Baptist Memorial Rehabilitation HospRehabilitation hospital145FTE
- Crestwyn Behavioral HealthPsychiatric hospital133FTE
- Germantown126
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 15 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,432 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Earthquakesrelatively high in parts of GermantownRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Germantown’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Shelby County and the Memphis, TN-MS-AR metro.
Germantown home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Germantown$480,889
- Tennessee$330,844
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Germantown listings, and the typical home goes pending in 30 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.
- Germantown36.01%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Germantown30
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Germantown241
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Germantown55
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Germantown$474,946
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Germantown97.71%
Zip codes with a Germantown address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Germantown — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Germantown
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38138 | Germantown | 25,167 | $2,259 | $429,441 |
| 38139 | Germantown | 16,466 | — | $585,243 |