Decatur, Alabama.
Typical home $219,954 (-0.9% in a year), asking rent $1,042 (+2.0%). Decatur, AL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$601 (+109%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $1,994 -1%
- $221,948$219,954 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $27,453 +14%
- $192,501$219,954 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.
- Decatur$1,154
- Alabama$1,252
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 26 years.
Typical home values in Decatur, AL fell 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Decatur, AL rose 2.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Decatur runs $410/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $534 in Oct 2023.
That is $1,452 a month against $1,042 rent: a $1,154 mortgage payment, plus $62 property tax and $235 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Decatur
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$1,452
- Renting$1,042
- Mortgage only$1,154
Property tax · $62/mo 0.34% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Morgan County, AL
Insurance & upkeep · $235/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 Decatur, Morgan County, Alabama
Decatur is a city of 57,938 people in Morgan County. Half its households earn more than $61,563 a year and half less, against $68,845 across Morgan County; 13% of its people live below the poverty line. 63% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 37% are rented. Unemployment in Decatur was 3.0% in August 2026, and Morgan County had 3.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
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. Decatur is a city in Morgan County, Alabama, and the largest community in the county. Residents are a little older than the typical American, and most homes are lived in by their owners. Incomes run below the county's overall, and relatively few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are mild and brief by national standards, summers are hot, and the year brings a good deal of rain.
Work. Manufacturing is the leading line of work among residents, followed by schools, hospitals and social care, then shops and professional and business services. Among the city's largest workplaces are Decatur City Schools, Nucor Steel Decatur and Wayne Sanderson Farms. Unemployment has edged up a little over the past year, while the county has gained jobs. A typical commute is short, and few people work from home.
Things to do. Delano Park, in or beside town, is a place for walks and open air, and the Blue and Gray Museum, also in or beside town, looks at the region's Civil War history. The Princess Theatre is a theatre right in town for an evening out. A short drive away, Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge protects wetland and open country for wildlife watching.
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- 23,722households
- 22%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Morgan County had 54,551 jobs in 2025, 3.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 52° 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 Decatur 4SE weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Decatur
- Decatur City SchoolsSchool district995FTE
- Nucor Steel DecaturSheets, steel, made in iron and steel mills789
- Wayne Sanderson FarmsPrepared food manufacturing479
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters357
- I.C.E. ContractorsElectrical, electrical wiring, and low voltage electrical work356
- Toray Composite Materials AmericaBrush blocks, carbon or molded graphite, manufacturing302
- Polyplex USASeptic tanks, plastics or fiberglass, manufacturing286
- Hyosung USATire cord and fabric, all materials, manufacturing236
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 72 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 7,520 people in all. School districts come 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
- TornadoesVery high
- LightningRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherrelatively high in parts of DecaturRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesrelatively high in parts of DecaturRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Decatur’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 Morgan County and the Decatur, AL metro.
Decatur home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Decatur$219,954
- Alabama$238,614
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Decatur listings, and the typical home goes pending in 32 days — the market is heating up.
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.
- Decatur27.91%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Decatur32
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Decatur325
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Decatur75
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Decatur$223,667
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Decatur96.46%
Zip codes with a Decatur address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Decatur — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Decatur
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35601 | Decatur | 35,449 | $1,030 | $172,712 |
| 35603 | Decatur | 32,179 | $1,155 | $276,455 |