Pick where you live now. We put the Census medians side by side and estimate what a house payment looks like in each — because the property-tax line, not the sticker price, is usually the surprise.
Alabama's property tax is low in national terms, and the ACS figure shows it directly: the median mortgaged household in the Huntsville metro pays roughly $1,405 a year, while the same household in the Austin metro pays about $7,403 — on a more expensive house. Over ten years that gap is a car, a kitchen, or a decade of your child's activities.
Huntsville's median household income sits near $87,000, which is high for the cost of living here — engineering and defence pay scales do the heavy lifting. Comparing prices without comparing local wages is how people talk themselves out of a good move, or into a bad one.
Alabama levies a state income tax on wages. Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Washington and Nevada do not. If you're moving from one of those states, your take-home pay will change — factor it before you compare gross salary offers.
Median gross rent of about $1,283 in the Huntsville metro is what a renter should budget as a midpoint. New-build apartments in MidCity and west Madison run above it; older duplexes and county rentals run below.
We'll send the city-to-city comparison with the payment math for your price range — the same numbers on this page, laid out so you can take them to a lender.
Photographs are freely licensed from Wikimedia Commons and credited under each image — see all photo credits.
The metro-level figures from the 2024 ACS 1-year estimates already on this page: median home value $331,800, median gross rent $1,283 a month, median household income around $87,000, and median property tax of $1,405 a year for mortgaged owner-occupied homes. Metro medians describe a market, not a specific house.
Worked back from the ACS figures, the median household pays about 0.42% of home value a year in property tax — among the lowest effective rates in the country. Your own figure is assessed per parcel, so it changes with the county and the assessment, not only the price.
Madison County's tax office publishes the parcel-level detail: madisoncountyal.gov
Median gross rent of $1,283 makes the metro cheaper than most places movers come from. Within the market, new-build apartments in MidCity and west Madison sit above that median and older duplexes and county rentals sit below it — the spread is wide enough that location matters more than the city average.
Two lines: property tax, where this metro is far below the metros movers arrive from, and house price per square foot. Against that, Alabama levies a state income tax — worth modelling if you are coming from Tennessee, Texas, Florida or Washington.