Plains, Georgia.
Typical home $122,481 (+10.3% in a year). Americus, GA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$374 (+139%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,435 +10%
- $111,046$122,481 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $28,167 +30%
- $94,314$122,481 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.
- Plains$643
- Georgia$1,727
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Plains, GA rose 10.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Plains, Sumter County, Georgia
Plains is a city of 573 people in Sumter County. Half its households earn more than $38,294 a year and half less, against $42,653 across Sumter County. Unemployment in Sumter County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 2.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Sumter County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Plains is a very small city in southwest Georgia, with far fewer residents than most towns that carry the name of a city. Household incomes here run below the county's, and homes are valued at a modest level. Winters are mild and rarely bring snow, while summers turn hot, and rain falls steadily through the year.
Work. Residents most often work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Sumter County, the largest workplaces include Sumter County Schools, Phoebe Sumter Medical Center and Georgia Southwestern State University. Jobs across the county have slipped a little from the year before, and unemployment there is a touch lower than it was a year ago. The typical commute is a moderate one.
Things to do. Jimmy Carter National Historical Park, a protected area, lies in or beside town and is the natural place to start. A short drive away are Morgan Farm, a museum, and Bear Creek, a river. For a longer outing, Andersonville National Historic Site is another protected area, a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 23 mintypical commute
What people in Sumter County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Sumter County had 9,680 jobs in 2025, 2.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 58° and lows near 36°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 71°. About 51 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Plains Southwest Ga Experiment Station weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sumter County
- Sumter County SchoolsSchool district592FTE
- Phoebe Sumter Medical CenterGeneral hospital402FTE
- Georgia Southwestern State UniversityUniversity or college378
- Magnolia ManorSkilled nursing facilities332
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters294
- South Georgia Technical CollegeTwo-year college214
- TSGGaskets manufacturing148
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter128
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 23 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,732 people in all across the county; Plains has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- HurricanesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Plains’ 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 Sumter County and the Americus, GA metro.
Plains home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Plains$122,481
- Georgia$329,115
- United States$366,157
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Plains7
Zip codes with a Plains address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Plains — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Plains
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31780 | Plains | 1,767 | — | $112,410 |
| 31824 | Preston | 1,066 | — | $129,111 |