Royston, Georgia.
Typical home $265,000 (+2.7% in a year). Athens-Clarke County, GA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$894 (+180%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,021 +3%
- $257,980$265,000 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $77,426 +41%
- $187,574$265,000 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.
- Royston$1,391
- Georgia$1,727
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Royston, GA rose 2.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Royston, Franklin County, Georgia
Royston is a city of 2,649 people in Franklin County. Half its households earn more than $34,435 a year and half less, against $53,046 across Franklin County; 22% of its people live below the poverty line. 61% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 39% are rented. Unemployment in Franklin County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 1.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Franklin 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Royston is a small city in Franklin County, in the northeast Georgia foothills. Most homes in town are lived in by their owners, though incomes run well below the county's, and a good share of residents live below the poverty line. Winters are mild and rarely bring snow, while summers turn hot and the year is a wet one.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and the building trades close behind. Across Franklin County, some of the largest workplaces are Franklin County Schools, St. Marys Sacred Heart Hospital and the truck trailer maker Carry-On Lavonia. Commutes tend to be long, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. The Ty Cobb Museum and Victoria Bryant State Park are both in or beside town, so a museum visit or a walk in a state park needs no real travel. The Hudson River is a short drive away. For a bigger outing, Lake Hartwell, a large reservoir, is a longer drive away.
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- 974households
- 27%of adults have a degree
- 22%below the poverty line
- 36 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What people in Franklin County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Franklin County had 8,226 jobs in 2025, 1.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 52° and lows near 33°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 70°. About 1 inches of snow and 52 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Hartwell weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Franklin County
- AutoZoneGeneral warehousing and storage560
- Franklin County SchoolsSchool district517FTE
- Carry-On LavoniaTruck trailer manufacturing320
- St. Marys Sacred Heart HospitalGeneral hospital259FTE
- Emmanuel UniversityUniversity or college187
- Kautex of GeorgiaGas tanks assembled, automotive, truck, and bus, manufacturing161
- Fanello IndustriesMetal service center131
- Brown Health and rehabilitationSkilled nursing facilities120
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 26 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,913 people in all across the county; Royston has two 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
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Royston’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Franklin County and the Athens-Clarke County, GA metro.
Royston home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Royston$265,000
- Georgia$329,115
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Royston 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.
- Royston36.65%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Royston38
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Royston7
Zip codes with a Royston address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Royston — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.