Southside, Alabama.
Typical home $274,868 (+1.3% in a year). Gadsden, AL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$809 (+128%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $3,424 +1%
- $271,444$274,868 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $60,262 +28%
- $214,606$274,868 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.
- Southside$1,443
- Alabama$1,252
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Southside, AL rose 1.3% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Living in Southside, Etowah County, Alabama
Southside is a city of 9,426 people in Etowah County. Half its households earn more than $76,487 a year and half less, against $54,563 across Etowah County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 93% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 7% are rented. Unemployment in Etowah County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Southside is a small city in Etowah County where nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Households here earn well above what is typical across the county, and very few people live below the poverty line. The population is somewhat older than in much of the country, and a minority of adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing and in the building trades. Across Etowah County, some of the largest workplaces are Etowah County Schools, Gadsden Regional Medical Center and Gadsden State Community College. The typical commute is a fairly short drive, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. Neely Henry Lake, a reservoir, and Janney Furnace Park, a garden, are both a short drive away, as is the Mort Glosser Amphitheater, a theatre. A longer drive brings you to Talladega Superspeedway, a race track, and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, a museum. Winters are mild with little or no snow, summers are hot, and rain falls plentifully through the year.
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- 3,297households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 2%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Etowah County had 33,095 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 53° and lows near 33°; warmest in July, with highs near 91° and lows near 71°. About 58 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Gadsden weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Etowah County
- Koch Foods Gadsden Processing PlantChickens, slaughtering and dressing1,189
- Etowah County SchoolsSchool district1,089FTE
- Gadsden Regional Medical CenterGeneral hospital804FTE
- Gadsden State Community CollegeTwo-year college577
- Riverview Regional Medical CenterGeneral hospital572FTE
- Gadsden City SchoolsSchool district531FTE
- Keystone FoodsPoultry processing509
- Fehrer AutomotiveMotor vehicle trimmings manufacturing399
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 70 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 7,886 people in all across the county; Southside 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
- TornadoesVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively 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 Southside’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 Etowah County and the Gadsden, AL metro.
Southside home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Southside$274,868
- Alabama$238,614
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Southside 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.
- Southside30.54%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Southside57
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Southside12
Zip codes with a Southside address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Southside — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.