Waterloo, Alabama.
Typical home $190,281 (+6.8% in a year). Florence-Muscle Shoals, AL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$527 (+112%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $12,063 +7%
- $178,219$190,281 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $26,683 +16%
- $163,598$190,281 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.
- Waterloo$999
- Alabama$1,252
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 23 years.
Typical home values in Waterloo, AL rose 6.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Waterloo, Lauderdale County, Alabama
Waterloo is a town of 178 people in Lauderdale County. Unemployment in Lauderdale County was 3.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Lauderdale 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Waterloo is a very small town in Lauderdale County, Alabama, at the northwestern edge of the state. Homes here cost less than the typical American home, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cool, with January the coldest month, while summers are warm, with July the hottest. Rain and melted snow add up to a good deal over the year.
Work. Most residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Lauderdale County, the largest workplaces include North Alabama Medical Center, the University of North Alabama and Lauderdale County Schools. Unemployment in the county is a little higher than a year ago, and the number of jobs has edged up slightly.
Things to do. J. P. Coleman State Park, a protected area, is a short drive away, as is Buzzard Roost Creek, a river. A longer drive leads to Pickwick Lake, a reservoir, and to Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, a museum. Together they give the area a mix of water, woodland and music history within reach.
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- 9%of adults have a degree
- 6%work from home
What people in Lauderdale County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lauderdale County had 30,996 jobs in 2025, 0.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 49° and lows near 28°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 67°. About 62 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Iuka weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lauderdale County
- North Alabama Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,258FTE
- University of North AlabamaUniversity or college1,145
- Lauderdale County SchoolsSchool district951FTE
- Florence City SchoolsSchool district448FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters392
- SouthwireCopper rolling, drawing, extruding, and alloying372
- American Wholesale Book CompanyBooks merchant wholesalers362
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters329
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 58 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 8,072 people in all across the county; Waterloo has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively 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 Waterloo’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 Lauderdale County and the Florence-Muscle Shoals, AL metro.
Waterloo home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Waterloo$190,281
- Alabama$238,614
- 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.
- Waterloo9
Zip codes with a Waterloo address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Waterloo — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.