Is it a buyer's or a seller's market? Six dials, updated monthly — speed, supply and seller behaviour, not just prices.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Birmingham listings, and the typical home goes pending in 27 days — the market is cooling.
Zillow's own model expects Birmingham home values to change +1.3% over the year to Sep 2027. A forecast, not a promise — it is revised every month, and Zillow publishes it with that caveat.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$693 (+103%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,225 +2%
- $254,485$260,710 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $36,249 +16%
- $224,460$260,710 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.
- Birmingham$1,368
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 23 years.
Typical home values in Birmingham, AL rose 2.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Birmingham, AL rose 2.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Birmingham runs $352/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $490 in Oct 2023.
That is $1,756 a month against $1,404 rent: a $1,368 mortgage payment, plus $109 property tax and $279 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Birmingham
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$1,756
- Renting$1,404
- Mortgage only$1,368
Property tax · $109/mo 0.50% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for 6 counties
Insurance & upkeep · $279/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.
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.
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.
- Birmingham25.07%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Birmingham27
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Birmingham5,835
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Birmingham1,479
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Birmingham$259,408
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Birmingham98.22%