Mobile, Alabama.
Typical home $196,696 (-0.4% in a year), asking rent $1,258 (+3.5%). Mobile, AL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$520 (+102%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $718 -0%
- $197,413$196,696 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $28,100 +17%
- $168,595$196,696 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.
- Mobile$1,032
- Alabama$1,252
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 22 years.
Typical home values in Mobile, AL fell 0.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Mobile, AL rose 3.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Mobile runs $62/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $191 in Sep 2021.
That is $1,319 a month against $1,258 rent: a $1,032 mortgage payment, plus $76 property tax and $211 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Mobile
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$1,319
- Renting$1,258
- Mortgage only$1,032
Property tax · $76/mo 0.47% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Mobile County, AL
Insurance & upkeep · $211/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 Mobile, Mobile County, Alabama
Mobile is a city of 187,041 people in Mobile County. Half its households earn more than $53,558 a year and half less, against $58,880 across Mobile County; 18% of its people live below the poverty line. 54% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 46% are rented. Unemployment in Mobile was 4.6% in August 2026, and Mobile County had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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. Mobile is a city on the Gulf Coast, home to a good many people, with a median age close to that of the country as a whole. Incomes run below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than most would expect to find in a city this size. More homes are lived in by their owners than rented, though renting is common too. A four-year degree is held by a minority of adults, and the typical commute is a modest one.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, then restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and professional and business services. Among the largest workplaces in Mobile are the University of South Alabama, Springhill Memorial Hospital and Infirmary Health System. Unemployment is higher than it was a year ago, and the county has lost a few jobs over the past year, so the local job market has cooled slightly.
Things to do. Winters are mild and brief, while summers turn hot, and the year brings a great deal of rain. For an outing, the Mobile River is a short drive away, as is USS Alabama, a museum ship, and Battleship Memorial Park, where it is moored. The Mobile Museum of Art is also a short drive away.
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- 84,639households
- 32%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Mobile County had 175,010 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 62° and lows near 42°; warmest in August, with highs near 92° and lows near 75°. About 61 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Mobile Dwtn Airport weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Mobile
- University of South AlabamaUniversity or college2,470
- Hargrove Engineers and ConstructorsConstruction engineering services2,328
- USA Children's and Womens HospitalChildren's hospital1,256FTE
- Performance Personnel Services of MobileEmployment placement agencies or services1,114
- Springhill Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital966FTE
- Infirmary Health SystemOffice admin650
- Thompson EngineeringEngineering services599
- Volunteers of America SoutheastGroup homes, intellectual and developmental disability580
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 223 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 25,094 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (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
- HurricanesRelatively high
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of MobileRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Mobile’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Mobile County and the Mobile, AL metro.
Mobile home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Mobile$196,696
- Alabama$238,614
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Mobile listings, and the typical home goes pending in 31 days — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Mobile27.85%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Mobile31
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Mobile1,101
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Mobile290
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Mobile$221,459
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Mobile97.40%
Zip codes with a Mobile address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Mobile — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Mobile
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36695 | Mobile | 52,690 | $1,442 | $279,459 |
| 36608 | Mobile | 38,890 | $1,371 | $241,219 |
| 36605 | Mobile | 25,104 | $1,199 | $91,428 |
| 36609 | Mobile | 23,820 | $1,003 | $203,289 |
| 36606 | Mobile | 18,728 | $1,218 | $142,921 |
| 36693 | Mobile | 18,726 | $1,582 | $227,649 |
| 36618 | Mobile | 17,892 | $1,462 | $170,047 |
| 36619 | Mobile | 14,697 | $1,650 | $216,721 |
| 36617 | Mobile | 11,128 | — | $60,444 |
| 36604 | Mobile | 8,836 | $1,132 | $199,625 |
| 36603 | Mobile | 7,760 | — | $69,508 |
| 36607 | Mobile | 5,393 | $1,672 | $117,691 |
| 36602 | Mobile | 1,043 | $1,283 | $328,784 |