Columbia, Tennessee.
Typical home $369,414 (+0.9% in a year), asking rent $1,584 (+3.0%). Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,112 (+134%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $3,211 +1%
- $366,202$369,414 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $70,032 +23%
- $299,382$369,414 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.
- Columbia$1,939
- Tennessee$1,737
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Columbia, TN rose 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Columbia, TN rose 3.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Columbia runs $888/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $997 in Jan 2025.
That is $2,472 a month against $1,584 rent: a $1,939 mortgage payment, plus $137 property tax and $395 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Columbia
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$2,472
- Renting$1,584
- Mortgage only$1,939
Property tax · $137/mo 0.45% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Maury County, TN
Insurance & upkeep · $395/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 Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee
Columbia is a city of 41,690 people in Maury County. Half its households earn more than $63,719 a year and half less, against $76,130 across Maury County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 63% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 37% are rented. Unemployment in Columbia was 4.6% in August 2026, and Maury County had 4.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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. Columbia is a city with a fairly young population, with a median age that sits on the youthful side. Incomes in town run below the county's, and a good share of households rent rather than own, though most homes are lived in by their owners. Winters are cold but short on snow, summers are hot, and the year is a wet one.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and in manufacturing, with shops and professional and business services also employing a good number. Among the largest workplaces in Columbia are Maury Regional Hospital, Maury County Schools and Columbia State Community College. The typical commute is a moderate one, and a modest share of people work from home. Jobs across Maury County fell somewhat last year, and unemployment in town is higher than it was a year earlier.
Things to do. Rippavilla Plantation, a museum, is a short drive away, as is Carters Creek, a river for time spent outdoors. McKamey Manor, a tourist attraction, lies a longer drive away.
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- 18,039households
- 25%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Maury County had 40,556 jobs in 2025, 4.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 48° and lows near 27°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 67°. About 1 inches of snow and 57 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Columbia Wnw weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Columbia
- Maury Regional HospitalGeneral hospital2,010FTE
- Maury County SchoolsSchool district1,799FTE
- Columbia State Community CollegeTwo-year college489
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters411
- WireMastersInsulated wire or cable merchant wholesalers242
- J. C. Ford CompanyPasteurizing equipment, food, manufacturing222
- Quality First Home CareHome health agencies192
- Smith ConstructorsExcavating, earthmoving or land clearing, mining186
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 40 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,626 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- TornadoesVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Ice stormsrelatively high in parts of ColumbiaRelatively moderate
- Earthquakesrelatively high in parts of ColumbiaRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherrelatively high in parts of ColumbiaRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Columbia’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 Maury County and the Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN metro.
Columbia home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Columbia$369,414
- Tennessee$330,844
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Columbia listings, and the typical home goes pending in 49 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.
- Columbia34.93%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Columbia49
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Columbia460
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Columbia91
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Columbia$355,269
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Columbia97.31%
Zip codes with a Columbia address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Columbia — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.