Ideal, Georgia.
Typical home $121,738 (+6.5% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$353 (+124%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,472 +7%
- $114,266$121,738 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $15,002 +14%
- $106,736$121,738 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.
- Ideal$639
- Georgia$1,727
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 26 years.
Typical home values in Ideal, GA rose 6.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ideal, Macon County, Georgia
Ideal is a city of 407 people in Macon County. Unemployment in Macon County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 8.7% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Macon 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ideal is a very small city in Macon County, Georgia, home to only a small number of residents. Home values here are modest, and incomes across Macon County sit well below what is typical for the country. Winters are mild and brief, with little or no snow, while summers turn hot, and the year brings plenty of rain.
Work. Residents of Ideal work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops and restaurants and hotels. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and few work from home. Across Macon County, some of the largest workplaces are International Paper, Macon County Schools and Flint River Community Hospital. Unemployment in the county is a little lower than a year ago, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. Whitewater Creek is a river a short drive away, and the nearest of the places worth knowing about. A longer drive brings you to Andersonville National Historic Site, a protected area that preserves an important piece of Civil War history. Also a longer drive away is Massee Lane Gardens, a botanical garden, and the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park, another protected area, is farther along the same roads.
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- 7%of adults have a degree
- 5%work from home
What people in Macon County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Macon County had 2,624 jobs in 2025, 8.7% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 59° and lows near 35°; warmest in July, with highs near 91° and lows near 70°. About 53 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Americus weather station, 24 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Macon County
- International PaperMill373
- Macon County SchoolsSchool district216FTE
- Montezuma Health and RehabilitationNursing homes76
- UAC AcquisitionPoultry catching services68
- House of RaefordEgg hatcheries, poultry62
- Flint River Community HospitalGeneral hospital40FTE
- House of RaefordEgg hatcheries, poultry24
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 603 people in all across the county; Ideal has none of its own. 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ideal’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 Macon County.
Ideal home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ideal$121,738
- Georgia$329,115
- United States$366,157
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.
Zip codes with a Ideal address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ideal — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.