Sewanee, Tennessee.
Typical home $439,579 (+3.3% in a year). Tullahoma-Manchester, TN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,231 (+114%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,838 +3%
- $425,741$439,579 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $72,846 +20%
- $366,733$439,579 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.
- Sewanee$2,307
- Tennessee$1,737
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 19 years.
Typical home values in Sewanee, TN rose 3.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Sewanee, Franklin County, Tennessee
Sewanee, in Franklin County, had 2,535 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Franklin County was 4.0% in August 2026, and the county had 2.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Sewanee is a small community on the Cumberland Plateau in Franklin County, and it is a young place, with a median age far below what most towns see, because so many residents are students at the university. Homes here are priced well above what is typical for the area, and household incomes in the county run below the national picture. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and highs staying above freezing, while summers are warm, and the year brings a good deal of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, shops, and professional and business services. Across Franklin County, the largest workplaces include The University of the South, Franklin County Schools and Southern Tennessee Medical Center. The commute is short, and a fair number of people work from home. Unemployment in the county is close to where it stood a year ago, though there were somewhat fewer jobs last year than the year before.
Things to do. McGee Field, a stadium in or beside town, is the closest of the nearby places. A short drive away is Lost Cove Cave, a protected area. A longer drive brings you to Russell Cave National Monument, another protected area, and to the Elk River, a good choice for time spent by the water.
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- 10 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Franklin County had 11,323 jobs in 2025, 2.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 45° and lows near 29°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 66°. About 64 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Sewanee weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Franklin County
- Nissan North AmericaEngines and parts, automotive and truck, manufacturing1,375
- The University of the SouthUniversity or college819
- Franklin County SchoolsSchool district742FTE
- Southern Tennessee Medical CenterGeneral hospital588FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters284
- Hi-Tech Mold & EngineeringMotor vehicle moldings and extrusions, plastics, manufacturing234
- JSPOther plastics product manufacturing140
- K VA T Food StoresSupermarket138
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 20 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,758 people in all across the county; Sewanee has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts from the Common Core of Data (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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Sewanee’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 Franklin County and the Tullahoma-Manchester, TN metro.
Sewanee home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Sewanee$439,579
- Tennessee$330,844
- 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.
- Sewanee13
Zip codes with a Sewanee address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Sewanee — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.