Is Huntsville Still Affordable? The Honest Answer Depends on Where You Are Leaving
What actually costs less here, where buyers get blindsided, and a sourced comparison of Huntsville against the eight markets our clients move from most.
The Short Version
Against Seattle, Southern California, the DC area, or the New York suburbs, Huntsville is still a large step down in cost, and the gap is widest on housing and property taxes. Against Colorado Springs or Florida's Space Coast, the difference is narrow enough that your own numbers, not the metro average, decide it.
- Cheap and affordable are not the same word. The value here is in what you get for the money, not a low sticker price. The bottom of this market is no longer a $150,000 house.
- Property tax is the line people refuse to believe. The median annual property tax bill is $1,185 in Madison County and $900 in Limestone County.
- You will likely earn less on the same rung of the ladder. In most origin markets the cost side falls further than the pay side, but run your own role, not the metro average.
- Feature creep is what breaks budgets, not the list price. The bonus room, the half acre, the trees, and the school zone each move the number.
- The $450,000 to $600,000 resale range surprises people most. Move-in ready and updated are two different things.
- Insurance is the one line where Alabama is not the bargain. Well under Florida, above the national average.
- Sub-$300,000 new construction still exists. Smaller lot, smaller house, basic finishes, and a perfectly good place to live.
Compare Your Market to Huntsville
Pick the market you are leaving. You will see the lines that actually change, using the same sourced figures as the full table further down. No email needed to see it.
The Ultimate Huntsville Relocation Guide covers what the table cannot: the areas and how they differ, what the housing stock looks like in each price band, and the questions to ask before you book a trip.
Where the Savings Are Real
The arbitrage is still there. Sell a standard house in an expensive metro, buy a nicer one here, and keep the difference. The average home in San Francisco or Seattle money buys a very nice house in the Huntsville area. You are not getting a steal. You are getting more house, more lot, and a much lower carrying cost.
The carrying cost is the part people underestimate. Housing, property tax, fuel, and state income tax all move at once when you cross into Alabama, and they compound every year you own the home.
There is also a category that does not show up in any index. Volleyball courts in South Huntsville, soccer fields, hiking trails, greenways, and parks are free. In a lot of markets you cannot leave the house without spending $100, and you spend two hours a day in the car for the privilege.
Property Taxes Are the Number People Do Not Believe
This is the single widest gap, and it hits hardest for the buyer who pays cash. Alabama's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes is the lowest in the country at roughly 0.37 percent. Illinois runs about 1.79 percent and New York about 1.23 percent on the same measure.
Run that through a paid-off house. A buyer arriving with equity from a high-cost market, buying here without a mortgage, can end up paying less annually to own the home outright, taxes and insurance together, than they were paying in property tax alone where they came from. We have clients under contract right now who keep asking us to confirm the number because it does not look right to them.
- Those medians cover every owner-occupied home in the county. A higher-priced home inside a city that carries its own municipal and school millage will run meaningfully above the median.
- Alabama's over-65 exemptions are claimed, not automatic, with different income tests attached to different tiers, and an October 1 occupancy and December 31 filing deadline.
- Ask for the actual bill on the actual address before you write an offer. We will pull it.
Huntsville vs. the Markets Our Clients Move From
Every column below uses one source, one definition, and one time period across all eight metros, so the rows are actually comparable. The price column is median list price, which is what sellers are asking rather than what closed. List runs above sold in every market here, so use this column to compare metros against each other, not as your local number.
Scroll the table sideways to see all columns.
| Metro area | Median list price Jul 2026 |
Cost of living US avg = 100 |
Property tax eff. rate |
State income tax top rate |
Home insurance per year |
Regular gas per gallon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Huntsville, AL | $370,000 | 93.1 | 0.37% | 5.00% | $3,516 | $3.70 |
| Seattle, WA | $775,000 | 111.1 | 0.74% | None on wages | $1,500 | $5.32 |
| San Diego, CA | $922,500 | 111.9 | 0.69% | 13.30% | $2,004 | $5.69 |
| Washington, DC area † | $579,450 | 108.9 | 0.75% | 5.75% | $1,776 | $3.86 |
| Chicago, IL | $392,500 | 103.6 | 1.79% | 4.95% | $2,592 | $4.28 |
| New York, NY | $772,250 | 112.6 | 1.23% | 10.90% | $1,344 | $4.21 |
| Colorado Springs, CO | $494,475 | 100.7 | 0.52% | 4.40% | $3,312 | $4.26 |
| Space Coast, FL ‡ | $375,000 | 100.0 | 0.76% | None | $6,504 | $3.88 |
Read the columns separately, and here is where each number came from
The overall cost of living index moves less than housing does. Huntsville sits about 17 percent below San Diego on all items but roughly 60 percent below on median list price. Housing and property tax carry almost the entire gap, which is why the move feels dramatic to a homeowner and much less so to a renter.
Insurance is the column that cuts the other way. Alabama runs above the national average of $2,844 because of hail, wind, and tornado exposure. It is still far below Florida, so buyers arriving from there see a real drop, while buyers from Washington or New York usually see insurance rise while property tax falls by more.
Sources and definitions. Median list price: Realtor.com residential listing data for the metro area (CBSA), July 2026, via FRED. List price, not sale price. Cost of living: Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities, all items, metro area, 2024, the most recent year published. Property tax: effective rate on owner-occupied housing value, state level, from 2024 American Community Survey data compiled by Construction Coverage. County medians above are from Tax Foundation, 2024 five-year ACS estimates. State income tax: top marginal rate effective January 1, 2026, Tax Foundation; Washington levies no tax on wage income but does tax certain capital gains. Home insurance: modeled annual premium for a $300,000 dwelling with a $1,000 deductible, state average, Insurify, August 2026; quoted rates for a standardized policy, not premiums actually paid. Gas: AAA state average for regular unleaded, August 31, 2026; fuel prices move weekly. † Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro; tax and insurance figures are Virginia. ‡ Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville metro. Property tax, income tax, insurance, and fuel are state-level figures, and city and county rates vary inside every metro listed.
Where Huntsville Is Pricier Than People Expect
Huntsville lands on affordability lists, people read the headline, and they arrive expecting $500,000 to buy something enormous. Above roughly $600,000 is where we hear "this is more expensive than I thought it would be." A highly finished home, in a coveted location, with acreage or a view, prices like a highly finished home anywhere.
That premium has climbed steadily over the last couple of years, and it is the reason the same square footage costs wildly different amounts depending on what is around it.
Feature Creep, Not Budget Creep
The call usually starts with 3,000 square feet, four bedrooms, three baths, a three car garage, and $600,000. The answer is usually yes. Then the list grows, and the budget does not grow with it. Every one of these is a real preference, and every one of them moves the price. Tap Add to my list on the ones that apply to you and we will carry them into the search below.
1. The bonus room or the extra suite
A fifth bedroom, a fourth bathroom, or a bonus room that works as a second living space. Individually small asks. Together they move a build or a resale up a full price band.
Easiest to find in new construction, hardest to find in an updated resale.
Add to my list
2. The half acre, the trees, the mountain
Lot size, privacy, elevation, and a treeline behind the house. This is the fastest-appreciating premium in the market right now, and it is the one buyers most often assume is free here.
Pushes you outward, and often into older housing stock.
Add to my list
3. A specific city or school zone
Narrowing to one city or one attendance zone removes most of the inventory that would have satisfied everything else on your list. It is a legitimate priority. It is also a price input.
The tighter the boundary, the less the budget buys inside it.
Add to my list
4. Updated, not just move-in ready
You can move into almost anything in the $450,000 to $600,000 resale range. Updated is a different standard: floors, carpet, roof, and exterior already done rather than on your list for year one.
The single most common compromise we see right now.
Add to my list
The 60 Day Test: What Actually Sold at Your Number
This one is for people who already have a price, a couple of areas, and a short list of things they will not give up. If you are still comparing metros, the comparison above is the more useful tool and you can come back to this later.
If a home matching your criteria did not sell in the last 60 days at your price, the market does not provide it. Not because your agent is not trying, and not because you have not found the right neighborhood. There are new construction exceptions, and we will check those too. But the market is what the market is.
Active listings do not answer this. Anyone can list a house at any price, so browsing what is for sale tells you what sellers hope for. Solds tell you what buyers actually paid, for what, and where. That is the only number that settles an expectation.
You are looking at what people are asking. We will show you what people got.Give us your must-have list and your number, and a licensed agent on our team pulls every closed sale in the last 60 days that matches, plus the near misses that tell you what one compromise would buy you. If the list comes back empty, that is the most useful answer on this page.
Tell us what you need and we will run it. No cost, nothing to sign, and it does not make us your agent.
Run My 60 Day Reality Check
Need something that is not on the list, like a specific commute or distance to care? Call or text 256-364-1971 and we will build it in.
What happens next, honestly. This one is not automated. A licensed agent on our team pulls the closed sales in the MLS by hand, usually within one business day, and sends you what matched along with the near misses. If nothing matched, we will tell you that plainly and show you what the closest compromise actually costs.
Retirement Math, and How Alabama Actually Treats Retirement Income
Alabama is unusually kind to retirement income, which is a real part of why people land here. The specifics, from the Alabama Department of Revenue rather than from memory:
- Social Security is not taxed by Alabama. No age test, no income test.
- Defined benefit pensions are exempt, as is military retirement pay and federal Civil Service retirement.
- The first $6,000 of taxable retirement income is exempt at 65 and older, per taxpayer, capped at the retirement income actually taxable to Alabama. A married couple who are both 65 or older can each claim it.
- 401(k), 403(b), and IRA distributions are defined contribution money. They are taxable to Alabama apart from that $6,000 exclusion.
- Homeowners 65 and older are exempt from the state portion of property tax once they claim it, with larger exemptions reaching county and city portions at lower income thresholds. The state portion is 6.5 mills, so it is a real but modest slice of a city tax bill.
The Florida comparison people expect to be lopsided is closer than they think. Florida has no state income tax, but higher effective property tax and dramatically higher insurance. Which state wins depends on your income mix, not on the bumper sticker.
The Compromise Nobody Plans For: Condition
The number one compromise we see right now is not size or location. It is condition. In the $450,000 to $600,000 resale range especially, buyers expect move-in ready and find not-updated instead. Nothing is wrong with the house. You can move in tomorrow. You are also refinishing floors, replacing carpet, doing exterior maintenance, and looking at a roof.
Older housing stock in some parts of the metro brings cast iron or galvanized supply lines and foundation repairs of varying provenance. And listing photography is optimistic everywhere. Photographers do not shoot the problem areas. By the time you have paid for flights and a hotel, you have often talked yourself into finding the steal you came for.
The way we head that off is video. If you are relocating, we will go preview homes and record a walkthrough for you, and we will be harder on the house than we would be for ourselves, because we do not know yet where your tolerance sits. There are four or five hundred of those private tours on the back end of our channel. Ask and we will shoot one for any home you are considering.
What "Affordable" Actually Means in This Market
Affordability is a comparison, not a category. Huntsville keeps landing near the top of national affordability lists because the underlying math is real: housing well below the national average, the lowest effective property tax rate in the country, and incomes lifted above the national average by the engineering, defense, and aerospace employers here. That combination is unusual for a metro this size with this many options.
What the lists cannot capture is the starting point you are comparing against. The same house is a bargain to a buyer leaving San Diego and a stretch to a buyer leaving a rural county two hours south of here. Both reactions are correct.
Why Inflation Lands Differently Here
Our costs rise at roughly the national rate, but they rise from a lower base. Something that costs $100 here and $200 somewhere else both take a 4 percent increase, and the absolute dollar increase here is half as large. Over years of ownership, that gap compounds in your favor, which is a different argument than the one about today's sticker price.
The Bottom of the Market Has Moved
The entry point is no longer a $150,000 house. It is around $300,000, with some inventory in the mid $200,000s that is thin and moves quickly. What $300,000 buys is real: brand new, three or four bedrooms, two baths, all brick, a smaller lot, and a basic interior with white cabinets, light countertops, LVP floors, and carpet in the bedrooms. That is a good house. It is nice in condition rather than nice in features, and it is still the fastest path to owning here with a small mortgage or none at all.
Square Footage Is the Line That Overdelivers
Buyers routinely arrive expecting 2,000 square feet and end up with 3,500, because they had priced that against their old market. Where expectations break is the reverse assumption: expecting to pay 2,000 square feet money for a 3,500 square foot home. The research to do before you come is not the metro average. It is what your specific list costs in the specific place you want it.
Common Questions
Is Huntsville still an affordable place to buy in 2026?
Relative to the metros most of our clients leave, yes. The Huntsville metro's median list price was $370,000 in July 2026 against $775,000 in Seattle and $922,500 in San Diego, and Alabama's effective property tax rate is the lowest in the country. Relative to what Huntsville cost five years ago, no. The bottom of this market is around $300,000 now rather than $150,000, and the top end prices like any desirable market. Affordable is a comparison, not a category.
Will I take a pay cut moving here, and does it cancel out the savings?
On the same rung of the ladder, in most professional roles, you will likely earn less here than in Seattle, Southern California, or the DC area. Huntsville's incomes run above the national average because of the engineering, defense, and aerospace base, so the gap is usually smaller than people fear. In most origin markets the cost side falls further than the pay side, and the difference is concentrated in housing and property tax rather than spread evenly. Check your own role and title, not the metro average.
How much are property taxes in Huntsville and Madison?
The median annual property tax bill is $1,185 in Madison County and $900 in Limestone County, per 2024 Census five-year estimates. Alabama assesses owner-occupied homes at 10 percent of appraised value and applies a homestead exemption, which is why bills land well below what buyers from other states expect. Your actual bill depends on which city and school district you land in, so a home inside Madison or Huntsville city limits carries municipal millage that unincorporated county property does not. We can run the actual bill on any specific address before you write an offer.
Is homeowners insurance cheaper in Alabama?
Not compared to most of the country. Alabama's modeled average annual premium is about $3,516 against a national average near $2,844, because of hail, wind, and tornado exposure. It is well below Florida, where the same standardized policy averages about $6,504, so buyers arriving from Florida see a genuine drop. Buyers arriving from Washington, New York, or Virginia usually see insurance go up while property tax goes down by more. Premiums here have risen in recent years, largely tracking rising home values.
Does Alabama tax retirement income?
Not all of it. Alabama does not tax Social Security benefits, defined benefit pensions, military retirement pay, or federal Civil Service retirement. For taxpayers 65 and older, the first $6,000 of taxable retirement income is exempt per taxpayer, so a couple who are both 65 or older can each claim it. Distributions from 401(k), 403(b), and IRA accounts are otherwise taxable to Alabama. Homeowners 65 and older are also exempt from the state portion of property tax once they file for it, with broader exemptions available below certain income thresholds. Confirm your own situation with a CPA.
What does $300,000, $450,000, and $600,000 actually buy right now?
At $300,000 and below there is still brand new construction: three or four bedrooms, two baths, all brick, smaller lot, basic interior finishes. A good house, without extra features. From $450,000 to $600,000 you are usually in resale, where the trade is condition, so budget for floors, carpet, exterior maintenance, and possibly a roof. Above $600,000 you are paying for the things that have gotten genuinely expensive here: acreage, privacy, elevation, and high-end finish. Square footage is the one thing that consistently overdelivers, and buyers who expected 2,000 square feet regularly end up with 3,500.
How do I know whether my budget is realistic before I fly out?
Look at closed sales rather than active listings. If a home matching your criteria did not sell in the last 60 days at your price, the market does not provide it, and no amount of searching will change that. New construction is the exception worth checking separately. Send us your list and we will run it, including the near misses that show you what one compromise would buy.
Should I buy here now or wait a few years?
Cameron's view in this episode, and it is a view rather than a forecast: this market is trending from low cost toward middle cost and is somewhere in the middle of that run, not at the peak. On a ten to twenty year horizon he would rather buy here today than three or four years from now, because the entry price and the equity position are both different. No one can promise appreciation, and the right answer depends on your timeline, your financing, and what you are selling to get here. That is the conversation to have on a call, not on a web page.
Run Your Own Numbers, Not the Average
Everything above is the metro. Your answer depends on the market you are leaving, the price band you are shopping, and what you are unwilling to compromise on. That is what the relocation consultation is: 30 to 60 minutes on your timeline, your budget, and what that budget actually buys in each part of town. Sometimes the honest outcome is that our market does not have what you want. Better to know that now than after the plane tickets.
Call or Text 256-364-1971 Schedule a CallRelated Episodes
Market figures on this page are current as of the dates cited with each source and change over time. Nothing here is tax, legal, or financial advice. Alabama tax treatment depends on your individual situation, so confirm it with a CPA, and confirm estate and title questions with an attorney. Cameron Walker Realty is an equal opportunity housing provider and does not steer buyers toward or away from any area on the basis of a protected characteristic.
Read the Full Episode Transcript ▾
Today we're going to ask the question, is Huntsville more affordable than where you live now? And then the second question we're going to ask is, by how much? So Megan, that's a huge topic for us. It's something that draws a lot of people to the Huntsville area.
And we want to go into what those details are and some of the nuances, so that people truly understand whether it's more affordable in their situation compared to where they are now.
Yeah. And it so depends on what you're coming from. If you're coming from a market where things are very expensive, it's going to seem very affordable. And if you're coming from a market where things are not, it's going to seem expensive.
That's obviously true, but in terms of our housing costs it's really apparent, because they're not cheap anymore. But for what you get, it can be a real value.
Absolutely. And I balance the words cheap and affordable. They don't mean the same thing.
It used to be that you would come here and be like, "Wow, I can get that." And it was mind-blowing.
It was very easy to get something for under $200,000 here when I first started in real estate. It wasn't super fancy, but you could get a house and it would be okay. Now that would be quite the hat trick.
I look at anecdotal evidence from my clients and what they've told me, and then also more empirical evidence, statistical norms. Seattle's one I love to beat up on because it's such a delta, and we have so many people that move here from there. It's insanely expensive. I was on Zillow yesterday getting prepped for this. Our average price point fluctuates between the mid threes and four hundred thousand, so I asked, what can you get for $400,000 there? You could get what I'm going to call a raft. And I literally mean it. It was sitting on a dock in the water, a wood box on top, 480 square feet, one bedroom, one bath, and that was the cheapest thing. It was $399,000.
And I'm like, that's insane. Then you start looking at an average house in that area, a three bedroom two bath, a four bedroom three bath, and you're already over a million.
Then the anecdotal evidence. I had clients that moved here two years ago and I love them. Dave and Deb, I know you still watch. They like to send me information, which is super helpful after you move here, and by the way, if anybody else watching has already moved here, definitely keep us in the loop. They had budgeted $60,000 to live here on an annual basis. They're frugal, they make every penny count, but they wound up only spending $32,000 their first year here. He messaged me that while I was actually in a meeting with another client looking to retire here, so it was apropos that the text came through in that moment. They also sold a very standard house up there for considerably more than what they spent here on a much nicer home. That arbitrage play is still there. And if you don't know what arbitrage means, it just means buy low, sell high, then buy low again somewhere else.
So if you're coming from an urban area, or a heavily populated area of any type, you're going to find that you can generally afford more here, a larger house for the same price. It's not a crazy deal anymore. But the average price of a home in, say, San Francisco or Seattle is going to be a very expensive, very nice house here. You get a lot more for your money.
And a lot of people say, "Okay, but I'm moving to Alabama, I'm not going to get paid enough to afford the house." That's a big misconception. There are parts of Alabama that are very economically depressed, and have been for a long time, because they're rural farming communities, and farmers are not getting paid more today than they did yesterday. But in our area our incomes are above the national average to begin with. A software engineer in San Diego versus here, there is going to be a pay discrepancy. You are more than likely going to make less here on the same rung of the ladder. But the average pay difference, depending on where you are in Southern California, is anywhere from 12 to 20 percent, while the average cost of living difference is 68 percent less here. That's property taxes, home cost, gas, groceries, and your state income taxes are all different here than they are there.
Editor's note: that 68 percent figure was said from memory. Per the sourced table above, overall price levels in the Huntsville metro run about 17 percent below San Diego and 16 percent below Seattle. The gap on housing alone is much larger, roughly 60 percent below San Diego on median list price, which is where the feeling of a 68 percent difference comes from for a homeowner.
I know we've talked about it before, but gas is a huge one. It's a lot less here.
Absolutely. I've literally had people from California ask me if we price it by the half gallon, because it's so much lower than what they see where they are.
But it's a mixed bag. It's not like you're landing in the place where everything is super inexpensive. You're not going to have 50 cent tacos. There's a lot of nice high-end food. Going out to eat here is not an inexpensive endeavor. It's probably less than if you were in Manhattan. But a cup of coffee is what, three fifty, four bucks here?
Yeah. And you're right, groceries have gone up, gas has gone up, like everywhere.
What I do tell people is that our increases rise with the national rate, but we start off at such a lower point. If something costs $100 and has 4 percent inflation, now it costs $104. If you're in another market where that same thing costs $200, it now costs $208. Inflation is based on your starting point. Because we're less expensive than so many other areas, our increases in absolute terms are lower, even when the percentage is the same.
I also think you'll save money because there are a lot of free activities here. There are volleyball courts in South Huntsville, soccer fields, hiking trails, parks, all kinds of things you can go do that don't cost you any money.
Absolutely.
And a lot of places, you can't leave the house without spending $100. I have felt that way. I felt like I was hemorrhaging money in other places.
You're absolutely right. It is so much less expensive to live here and go do things. And you actually have the time to do it on top of that, because you're not stuck in the car for two hours a day.
Now, when we look at the areas people move here from, it is relative to where you come from. Areas where people move here frequently and where we have a lot of clients: Northern Virginia, DC, Southern Maryland, that metroplex. Chicago is one. I have some people coming in from New York right now. Several from Southern California, Seattle, and Colorado Springs, particularly now with Space Command coming here, and I'd even say the Space Coast of Florida. If you're moving here from Southern California or Seattle, you're going to see the biggest economic difference. Yes, you will make less money on the same rung of the ladder, but your cost of living will be significantly lower. New York and DC are also places where you see a lot of that. Chicago as well, but for different reasons than those other areas. There it's actually property taxes that have a huge play. I have people moving down right now, we go to closing in a couple of weeks on a house, and they're coming from New York, not New York City, outside of the city, kind of rural. Their property taxes here are going to be a quarter of what they paid there. And they keep checking with me because they don't believe it.
Now, if you come here from Colorado, Colorado Springs particularly, it's going to be very similar. It is less expensive here on average, but not by a wide enough margin that you might not be above the average. It could be more expensive for you. And if you're coming here from the Space Coast of Florida, it's about dead even, and that has to do with state income taxes.
Property taxes are one where people get blown away, because in some markets in the country they're very, very expensive.
Absolutely. And that impacts people not only if you have a mortgage, but if you have paid off your home, or you pay it off when you buy here. This is something we run into pretty frequently. You're in one of those higher cost of living markets. You bought there 20 years ago. You have a ton of equity built up because of the rapid appreciation those areas saw. You move here and you buy all cash. You buy that six or seven hundred thousand dollar house cash. Your property taxes are maybe three grand, maybe four or five if you buy in Madison. And then your homeowners insurance is two grand. You are paying annually to own your home less than you were paying in property taxes somewhere else. It's ridiculous. You're saving all that money off the mortgage, you're saving it off taxes. If you're coming from Florida, our insurance, you just wonder if your house is really insured based on the difference. It's really surprising to people, those housing costs and related costs so much lower than what they experienced elsewhere.
But even so, insurance has gone up in the last few years here. If you're someone who's lived here you're like, what keeps happening, because it has gone up.
Absolutely. Well, there'll be local folks that tell us that, and that's true of everywhere. If they had lived anywhere else it would have gone up too.
But it's gone up because your property values have gone up. It hasn't gone up because people changed the system.
Absolutely. And I saw a lot of people complaining about their property values going up. I get it, until you go to sell.
You want your property values to go up.
It happens incrementally, guys. It doesn't all happen the day you decide to sell or get an equity line. It's going to happen year over year. It's good for the market, it's healthy. We would much rather that than your property value going down.
But it does surprise people, the delta. Now, another surprise that gets people is that sometimes we're pricier than they expect. We were talking earlier about cheap, but I'm talking more on the higher end of things here locally. I see feature creep, but not budget creep. Here's an example. Somebody will call me and say, "Hey, we need a 3,000 foot home, four bedrooms, three baths, three car garage. Can we get that for $600,000?" Now, I have to ask some additional questions. Are you looking new? What kind of lot are you looking for? Do you want to be on a mountain? Back to trees? Be in a cookie cutter neighborhood? What school district, what tax zone? And we start off with, yes, we can make that work. But then it's, well, we really need a bonus room too.
Or a fifth bedroom, or a fourth bathroom, or we need a half acre lot, or we need to back to trees, or be on a mountain, or be in this school zone.
And it's like, okay, well, we've now increased the budget too, because we were at the cap. And if you don't see it on Zillow, odds are it doesn't exist. There are new construction exceptions, I'll say that. But if you can't find a home that sold in the last 60 days that matches your criteria and the price range you're looking for, then the market doesn't provide it. And there's nothing you or I are going to do about that. The market is what the market is. So if you start having feature creep on what you're looking for, fine, absolutely, I want you to buy what you want. Understand that's going to come with an additional cost.
And this is about expectations. People read that Huntsville has made it to the top of these affordability lists and they think, wow, I'm going to be able to go there and get everything I want. They're thinking, I have $500,000 to spend, that's going to be a mansion there. And while it is affordable, and you can afford to live here, everything you want isn't extra inexpensive here.
So if you decide you want to live in a super nice house with a lot of features in a highly coveted area, it can get pricey. It's usually those people in that $600,000-plus category who say, this is way more expensive than I thought it would be.
And I think in that $450,000 to $600,000 price range, they're not necessarily always getting what they want if they're looking at used homes.
Resales particularly, in areas with aged infrastructure, where you may see cast iron pipes, galvanized pipes, foundation repairs, whether or not they were done by an engineer. You run into this situation where these houses need to be renovated or updated, and it's, "Oh, I thought at $450,000 I was getting move-in ready." Well, you can move into the house. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's not updated. You're going to spend money refinishing the floors, you're going to replace the carpets, you're going to have to do some exterior maintenance, replace the roof, things like that. That catches people by surprise too.
And $450,000 five years ago was a perfect home. So that has changed quite a bit.
Absolutely. Now, there is still the $300,000 and less brand new construction, three bedroom two bath, four bedroom two bath homes out there too. So it depends on what you want. If you want something grand, it's going to cost more. If you want something brand new, bigger lot, bigger house, it's going to cost more. But there are still those opportunities to move here and pay cash or get a small mortgage and live here very affordably. So don't let this discussion dissuade you from that either. Just understand what you're getting into. You're going to get a small lot, a small house. It will be all brick, and it's going to be a very basic interior. White cabinets, white countertops, light colored LVP floors, carpet in the bedrooms, that kind of thing. But it'll be a nice house. Nice is in the condition of it, not necessarily a bunch of extra features.
And that's just how markets work. The bottom of our market is no longer a $150,000 house. The bottom of the market is around $300,000. You can still find things in the mid twos, but it's tricky, you don't have a lot of selection, and you just need to have manageable expectations. While this is one of the more affordable markets, especially for a place this affluent, with this many options, this great of a lifestyle, it's not like the 90s where you would go from an urban environment to a less urban environment and just have money to burn.
Right. And it depends on what stage of life you're in. We've done numerous videos on this and we'll do more in the future because you guys love them, on retirement in Huntsville and how affordable it is. Alabama in general is very kind to people 65 and older and people that are taking retirement based income drafts. Things like not taxing most pensions. You get a certain amount from your 401k or IRA, like six grand or more per individual, before it's taxed. If you make under a certain amount and you're 65 and older, you don't pay the state portion of your property taxes. So there are all these little caveats for people that are approaching or in retirement that draw them here too.
When we look at Florida, if you move to Florida, yes, you don't pay income tax, but you've got higher property tax and your insurance is effectively a tax. Versus you move here, and depending on your income situation you may pay no income tax again, and you've got lower property taxes and you have lower insurance. So the financial scales may be tipped in your favor here, depending on your personal situation.
I do think that financially, moving here for a lot of people in a lot of places is going to be a financial advantage. But there are people who, I mean, this isn't the most inexpensive market in the country.
Sure.
And depending on where you're coming from, you're either going to be like wow, or, no way.
Absolutely right. And I feel like we are trending from low cost to middle cost. We did a podcast a little bit ago where we talked about the economic advantages of being here and whether or not we're in a bubble, and are we at the peak, the middle, the beginning? And I still feel this way, we're in the middle. So we are on an upward trajectory. Buying here today versus buying here two or three years from now is a different financial commitment, and you're in a different equity position and appreciation position. In general, and I know I'm a realtor and it's all buy a house today, it's not always the best day to buy a house. I think if you look on a long-term scale, a 10, 15, 20 year horizon, you're much better off buying here today than three or four years from now.
That's how it is with any appreciating investment. It takes time.
Absolutely. Coming in now, you take advantage of the differential between what you sell that house for elsewhere and what you pay for it here.
I think the big thing is that people need to have managed expectations, especially at the higher price points with homes here. The thing that you often get that is much better here is square footage. I have people all the time say, "Oh, 2,000 square feet," and then they end up with 3,500 square feet because they just didn't think that was possible. So you do get a lot more in terms of square footage here at those mid to higher price points.
For sure. I would say the more research you do on the front end, the better off you are. If you come in with an expectation of 2,000 and you get 3,500, great. If you come in with the expectation of paying for a 3,500 foot home what you would pay for 2,000, that's a problem. So it is doing that research in advance and seeing where prices are for what you want, not just in general. There's the average, but there's what you want, where you want it, and that could be up or down from what you expect.
So it's a mixed bag. I think that's the bottom line, that it really is a mixed bag. And this is just the way that everything is these days. Things are more expensive than they used to be.
And the process for us: if somebody reaches out, they register on our website, they email us, they schedule a call, whatever, we're going to find out what you want. We call it a relocation consultation. We want to find out who you are, what's bringing you to the area, what your timeline is, what your expectations are around budget and what you can get for it, what part of town you're going to live in. These initial calls go anywhere from 30, 45 minutes, maybe an hour, depending on people's personal situations. That's really what we dig into initially. And sometimes that initial call is the last call. We realize, hey, our market doesn't offer what you want and you don't have the ability to compromise on it, so we're not the right fit. More times than not we are able to help, obviously, otherwise people wouldn't be calling us. But we have those conversations so that we understand, okay, we can eliminate these three areas because they don't offer what you want in the price range you want it, or they don't have new construction and that's what you want, or they don't have trees and that's what you want. We have to understand the whole package, not just the square footage.
And if you're looking for that deal, if you're coming here because you have seen that this is an affordable place and you want that deal, they exist, but you might have to be open to a larger area, or be able to make a few different compromises. You might not be able to get that deal in the middle of Madison City Schools. You might not get the 4,000 square foot home with all the customized things that you want in those areas at the price you want. You might have to move to a different area or choose a smaller home. Compromises might have to be made.
I would say the number one compromise I see right now, and it's been trending this way over the last year or two, is in the condition of the home. Because while land is inexpensive here compared to other areas, the premium has certainly increased over the last couple of years. I heard somebody phrase it this way, they said acreage is the new luxury. And that's 100 percent accurate. Where we used to price for luxury, we now price for privacy, acreage, distance from someone else. So I see people moving here and they're like, "Oh, but if I move out to XYZ place, I can get more house for the money." You may, absolutely, but that house is 50 years old and hasn't been updated in 40. You need to be prepared for that when you come here. And photographers photoshop everything. They don't take photos of the areas that are problematic. You walk across the floor and it's like walking across the ocean, it gives so much. These are things that catch people by surprise, and you've paid for plane tickets and a hotel room to come down here, and you've kind of convinced yourself, despite what we may tell you, that you're going to be able to find this thing that's a steal.
So you absolutely have to adjust expectations. Age of home, location, size and condition. If I know someone's coming and I have time, we'll go preview stuff before they get here. It gives them a much better idea of what's really out there.
And if you're moving here, I'll go out and do video tours for you. I have probably four or five hundred home tours on the back end of the YouTube channel that are just private tours for people, where I send them a link. I'm going to tear that house apart. I'm going to be absolutely like a jerk about it, because I don't know what's important to somebody when they move here. What I think is okay, they may not. What I've learned over the years is to just be on the extreme end and be upfront about it. I tell them, hey, I'm going to be more critical of this home than I really personally feel in most cases, but because I don't know your temperature level on this stuff, I can't assume that you're okay with everything that I personally would be okay with. So I'm going to point it all out. Everything I see, everything I smell, everything I hear.
I have people right now, we're looking at a lot for them to build on. They're selling their house in Texas, they're going to be here in a couple of weeks. We were looking at a place for them to stay temporarily while they build, and they asked about the location. I told them, you're pretty close to the highway. And then it dawned on me. Wait, you're coming here from Dallas. Our highway is nothing compared to what you're coming from. And they said, we like road noise. Great.
Like the ocean.
So I'm not telling them not to live there. I'm just telling them this is what you're going to experience while you are there.
I think we've covered this pretty effectively.
Absolutely. So hopefully we set the expectations right. If we haven't, it's always a one-on-one call to begin with anyway. So we'd love to hear from you and what you're looking for so we can help you with your relocation. Thanks for watching.
Thank you everybody.