Decatur, Tennessee.
Typical home $275,148 (+7.5% in a year). Athens, TN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$838 (+138%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,125 +7%
- $256,023$275,148 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $68,652 +33%
- $206,497$275,148 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$1,444
- Tennessee$1,737
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Decatur, TN rose 7.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Decatur, Meigs County, Tennessee
Decatur is a town of 1,563 people in Meigs County. 58% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 42% are rented. Unemployment in Meigs County was 5.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Meigs County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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 the small seat of Meigs County in eastern Tennessee, a place where residents are somewhat older than across the country as a whole. A majority of homes are lived in by their owners, and a typical home is valued well above what the county's incomes might suggest. Winters are cool and bring only a little snow, summers are hot, and rain falls plentifully through the year.
Work. Manufacturing is the leading line of work among residents, followed by schools, hospitals and social care, the building trades, and professional and business services. Few people work from home, and relatively few adults hold a four-year degree. Across Meigs County, the number of jobs slipped slightly over the past year and unemployment is about where it was a year earlier. Large local workplaces include Storm Power Components, Meigs County Schools and IronCraft Decatur.
Things to do. Watts Bar Lake, a reservoir, and the Piney River are both a short drive away, so time on the water is close at hand. In or beside town, the Meigs County Historical Museum offers a look at local history. For a longer day out, Cumberland Mountain State Park is a protected area a longer drive away.
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- 719households
- 11%of adults have a degree
- 3%work from home
What people in Meigs County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Meigs County had 1,930 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 48° and lows near 28°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 67°. About 3 inches of snow and 58 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Decatur 7NE weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Decatur
- Storm Power ComponentsMachine shops320
- Meigs County SchoolsSchool district257FTE
- IronCraft DecaturFarm tractors and attachments manufacturing97
- Volunteer Energy Cooperative - DecaturDistribution of electric power85
- WGS Global Services, LCChassis, automobile, manufacturing30
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 4 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 532 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
- Strong windVery high
- LightningRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively 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 Meigs County and the Athens, TN 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$275,148
- Tennessee$330,844
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Decatur listings — 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.
- Decatur34.86%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Decatur44
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Decatur9
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.