Rental market · Columbus, GA · Incorporated city
Columbus, GA: average rent, home values, and rental yield
South Atlantic · Population 203,711
Why this market does or does not qualify
Overall City Market Score rank #1,343 of 4,812. Buy & Hold shortlist rank #185.
Price × rent decision grid · 25% down
Change the two inputs that usually decide the deal. Green cells clear the three financial requirements before the separate quality and data gates.
| Monthly cash flow / Hold Coverage | 10% below entry$82,841 | Entry estimate$92,045 | 10% above entry$101,250 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% higher rent$1,439/mo | +$610/moHC 2.47 · clears financial screen | +$550/moHC 2.20 · clears financial screen | +$490/moHC 1.98 · clears financial screen |
| Modeled rent$1,308/mo | +$510/moHC 2.22 · clears financial screen | +$450/moHC 1.98 · clears financial screen | +$390/moHC 1.78 · clears financial screen |
| 10% lower rent$1,177/mo | +$400/moHC 1.98 · clears financial screen | +$350/moHC 1.76 · clears financial screen | +$290/moHC 1.58 · clears financial screen |
Expense waterfall · base case
Monthly, rounded to $10. NOI excludes CapEx and debt service.
- Scheduled rent+$1,310/mo
- Vacancy allowance−$70/mo
- Management−$100/mo
- Maintenance−$70/mo
- Property tax−$70/mo
- Insurance allowance−$40/mo
- NOI+$970/mo
- CapEx reserve−$70/mo
- Debt service−$460/mo
- Cash flow+$450/mo
Two supported strengths
Cash Flow 92/100 and Growth 41/100.
Weakest measured signal
Stability is the weakest category at 41/100.
Primary evidenced risk: property crime is the weakest measured factor (20th national percentile). Data caveat: price is Zillow Bottom-Tier ZHVI (5th–35th percentile); rent is ZORI asking rent and is not bedroom- or property-matched. Insurance is a 0.5% annual allowance, not a quote.
Scenario buy-hold-v1-2026-09-19: 7% fixed financing for 30 years; 20% and 25% down; 5% vacancy; 8% management on collected rent; 5% maintenance and 5% CapEx on scheduled rent; measured local property tax; 3% closing costs. Qualification also requires positive cash flow, Hold Coverage at least 1.10, nonnegative cash flow after 10% lower rent, and the existing quality and data gates.
Property verification checklist
- Confirm achievable rent with bedroom-matched comps, current listings, and any existing lease.
- Use the parcel’s actual tax bill and reassessment rules.
- Obtain a landlord insurance quote, including wind, flood, or named-storm coverage where relevant.
- Inspect roof, structure, mechanicals, deferred maintenance, and immediate capital needs.
- Verify utilities, HOA, licensing, inspection, registration, and local rental rules.
- Replace the modeled loan with a current lender quote, points, closing costs, and reserve requirements.
Why this grade
Overall 54.3 is a weighted geometric mean of the three category scores. Because they are multiplied rather than averaged, their distances from a perfect 100 combine as an exact identity, and each category's share of that distance is the arithmetic below, not an estimate. Growth carries 51% of it, which is what makes it the binding constraint on this grade.
Inside Growth, the shortfall splits over the factors the model scored here, exactly, in proportion to their published weights. The largest component is population growth (weight 12 of the category's 35, 28th national percentile, 42% of the category's own shortfall); next is job growth (weight 12 of the category's 35, 34th national percentile, 38% of the category's own shortfall).
What this is not. It is not a claim that a different value on any one factor would produce a different score or a different grade. Every factor is scored as a national percentile and the grade is a percentile cut against the other 4,812 ranked markets, so this market's position moves only relative to all of them, never on its own. 1 of the 13 factors could not be measured for this market (months of supply). Its category renormalizes over the factors that remain: a factor we could not measure is never imputed to fill the gap and never scored as neutral.
How Columbus ranks nationally
Each row places Columbus against all 4,812 ranked U.S. markets. The marker is this city; the centre tick is the national median, and the bar spans from that median to the marker, so its length is how far from the middle of the country this market sits and the side it falls on is the direction. Further right is more favorable to an investor: inverted measures (crime, vacancy, price-to-income) are already flipped so higher always means better here.
What a deal looks like here
A market-level buy-box for Columbus, built from this market's own numbers: the investor-entry price, its rent, and local carrying costs. The market grade is a quality screen; the deal verdict below is this financing scenario only. An illustrative scenario, not a listing.
Meets screen at 20% down. At 25% down, named scenarios span +$350 to +$450/mo after reserves (10% lower-rent stress to base case). This range is not a confidence interval.
Buy target = Zillow Bottom-Tier ZHVI (5th–35th percentile) $92,045; typical home value $175,951. Rent = Zillow ZORI typical asking rent. Assumptions: 25% down, 7% / 30-yr, 5% vacancy, 8% management on collected rent, 5% maintenance, 5% CapEx reserve excluded from NOI and subtracted from cash flow, 0.5% insurance, 0.86% property tax. Illustrative market-level scenario: not a listing, appraisal, recommendation, or underwriting decision. As of 2026-07-10.
Measured market data
Measured observations for Columbus, shown as context beside the market score (none of it feeds the score), and the model weights are unchanged. These are different measurements from the Census figures in the factor table: the ACS median value is what owners report in a 5-year survey, while ZHVI is a monthly index of typical value; ACS median gross rent is what sitting tenants pay including utilities, while ZORI indexes asking rent on newly listed units. Neither corrects the other. Monthly series, revised in recent months, observed 2026-07, not live.
23 measured Zillow figurestypical value $174,343 · asking rent $1,314/mo · measured gross yield 9.04% · observed 2026-07Show table
| Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI, mid tier) | $174,343 |
|---|---|
| ZHVI bottom tier (5th–35th pct) | $90,076 |
| ZHVI top tier (65th–95th pct) | $302,933 |
| ZHVI, single-family only | $174,468 |
| Zillow asking-rent index (ZORI) | $1,314/mo |
| Measured gross yield (ZORI × 12 ÷ ZHVI) | 9.04% |
| Market heat index | 42 |
| Median days to pending | 19 |
| Share of listings with a price cut | 24.0% |
| Median sale-to-list ratio | 99.6% |
| For-sale inventory | 713 |
| New listings | 201 |
| Median list price | $221,433 |
| Median sale price | $189,950 |
| Measured 3-yr value growth | 3.64%/yr |
| Measured 5-yr value growth | 5.22%/yr |
| Measured 3-yr rent growth | 4.33%/yr |
| Price–rent divergence (value − rent growth) | -0.69%/yr |
| ZHVI, 1-bedroom | $60,892 |
| ZHVI, 2-bedroom | $76,745 |
| ZHVI, 3-bedroom | $161,912 |
| ZHVI, 4-bedroom | $274,514 |
| ZHVI, 5-bedroom | $455,972 |
Source: Zillow Economic Research public research data, observation month 2026-07. Zillow is not affiliated with, and does not endorse, Compounding Estates.
Price & rent history
Home value $115,154 → $175,951 (2000-01–2026-08) · Asking rent $752 → $1,308 (2015-01–2026-08)
Source: Zillow ZHVI (home value) and ZORI (asking rent) - monthly resolution for the last ~10 years (since 2016-09), quarterly before that. Home value uses the left axis, rent the right; toggle either series, change the range, hover to read any point. Gaps in the source series are left as gaps - never interpolated.
ZIP markets in Columbus
11 Census ZIP Codes (ZCTAs) officially overlap Columbus by land area · 9 data-eligible for subscores. Overlap is Census land-area share, not a population or address share. Each ZIP Code's overall Rental Investor ZIP Score, grade and canonical national rank are shown below (the two component signals, affordability and rental market, are separate percentiles). There is no city-scoped ZIP rank: city overlap isn't a ranking universe, so only the national rank is shown. These ZIP rankings sit in the ZIP universe only, never mixed with, and not directly comparable to, Columbus's city ranking. Vintage: the Key metric column below is Census ACS 2020–2024 (5-year), the same survey release as the figures used above for Columbus itself; a city and a ZIP Code are different geographies, so the same measure can still show a different number at each level.
11 of 11 overlapping ZIP Code areas, scoredgrade, overall Rental Investor ZIP Score and national rank for each, on a separate model from this page's city scoreShow table
| ZIP Code | Overallgrade · natl rank | Tier · overlap | Affordabilitysignal · natl rank | Rental marketsignal · natl rank | Key metric |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31829Columbus | — | ProfilePrimary | — | — | $376kMedian value |
| 31901Columbus | D 35#15,108 nat | RankedPrimary | 48#10,621 of 20,132 · bottom 47% | 67#2,866 of 20,132 · top 14% | 4.9%Survey yield |
| 31903Columbus | C 49#9,533 nat | RankedPrimary | 94#168 of 20,132 · top 1% | 67#2,792 of 20,132 · top 14% | 13.0%Survey yield |
| 31904Columbus | C 45#11,293 nat | RankedPrimary | 60#5,583 of 20,132 · top 28% | 69#2,388 of 20,132 · top 12% | 5.8%Survey yield |
| 31906Columbus | D 41#13,214 nat | RankedPrimary | 55#7,416 of 20,132 · top 37% | 57#6,800 of 20,132 · top 34% | 6.2%Survey yield |
| 31907Columbus | C 50#8,842 nat | RankedPrimary | 76#1,915 of 20,132 · top 10% | 65#3,398 of 20,132 · top 17% | 8.4%Survey yield |
| 31909Columbus | C 51#8,471 nat | RankedPrimary | 66#3,895 of 20,132 · top 19% | 76#759 of 20,132 · top 4% | 7.1%Survey yield |
| 31820Columbus | D 37#14,611 nat | RankedPrimary | 60#5,481 of 20,132 · top 27% | 9#19,574 of 20,132 · bottom 3% | 6.1%Survey yield |
| 31808Columbus | C 53#7,054 nat | RankedPrimary | 59#5,881 of 20,132 · top 29% | 36#15,717 of 20,132 · bottom 22% | 6.3%Survey yield |
| 31801Box Springs | C 49#9,356 nat | Ranked37% overlap | 61#5,418 of 20,132 · top 27% | 39#14,332 of 20,132 · bottom 29% | 4.2%Survey yield |
| 31905Cusseta-Chattahoochee County unified government | — | Profile19% overlap | — | — | $2k/moMedian rent |
The honest read
Columbus scores 54/100 overall (grade B): 92 for Cash Flow, 41 for Growth, and 41 for Stability, each a 0–100 score built from the factors in that category. The scenario above shows what a representative investor-entry purchase pencils out to at today's rates. Everything we can measure is in the table below, with its source.
Every factor, shown
The Overall score blends three category scores built from thirteen measured factors: Cash Flow (35%), Growth (35%), and Stability (30%). The table shows every factor; the tag on each percentile marks which category a scored factor feeds. Untagged factors are shown for context but not scored. Every percentile also carries the band it falls in - top 10%, top quartile, above or below the national median, bottom quartile, bottom 10% - so a bare ordinal still reads as a position; the band restates that percentile and adds nothing to it. Every value carries its source and as-of date. How the score works.
| Factor | Value | National percentile | Source · as-of | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expense-adjusted yield | 6.0% | Top 10%95th percentile · Cash Flow | Zillow ZORI/ZHVI · 2026-08-31 | Annual rent divided by price, net of a modeled vacancy, tax, capex, and management allowance: the core of the Cash Flow category and what the score is actually computed from. The unadjusted gross yield is shown elsewhere on this page. |
| Price to income | 3.0x | Top quartile88th percentile · Cash Flow | Zillow + ACS income · 2026-08-31 | Home price over local median income. Lower is cheaper relative to what people earn. Part of the Cash Flow category. |
| Population growth | -0.1%/yr | Below median28th percentile · Growth | Census PEP · Census PEP 2020→2025 (vintage 2025) + Census PEP 2015→2025 (vintages 2019+2025) | Census population trend for the place, capped at 4.5%/yr before scoring (diminishing returns above that rate): the heaviest factor in the Growth category. |
| Job growth | 0.2%/yr | Below median34th percentile · Growth | BLS LAUS (county) · BLS LAUS county annual 2019→2025 (pre-COVID anchor; 2025 is an 11-month average) + BLS LAUS county annual 2015→2025 | County employment trend, capped at 4.0%/yr before scoring (diminishing returns above that rate). A Growth-category factor. |
| Income growth | 4.6%/yr | Below median42nd percentile · Growth | Census ACS · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Local median-income trend. A Growth-category factor. |
| Rent growth | 5.2%/yr | Top quartile89th percentile · Growth | Zillow ZORI · 3yr + 10yr to 2026-08-31 | A 40/60 blend of 3-year and 10-year rent trend (the model's own weighting). A Growth-category factor. |
| Home-value growth | 5.1%/yr | Above median61st percentile · Growth | Zillow ZHVI · 3yr + 10yr to 2026-08-31 | A 40/60 blend of 3-year and 10-year price trend (the model's own weighting). A small Growth-category factor. |
| Unemployment | 4.1% | Above median51st percentile · Stability | BLS LAUS (county) · BLS LAUS county annual 2025 (11-month average) | County unemployment rate. Lower is steadier, a Stability-category factor. |
| Rental vacancy | 4.1% | Above median64th percentile · Stability | Census ACS B25004 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Share of rentals empty. Lower means more pricing power. A Stability-category factor. |
| Property tax rate | 0.9% | Above median59th percentile · Stability | Census ACS B25103/B25077 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Median tax over median value. A direct drag on cash flow, scored in the Stability category as carrying-cost burden. |
| Months of supply | not measured | - | derived | Listings over sales pace. Under about 4 is a seller market, over 6 a buyer market. A Stability-category factor. |
| Days on market | not measured | - | derived | How fast homes sell. Lower means more liquidity and an easier exit. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Sale-to-list ratio | not measured | - | derived | Sale price over asking. Above 100% means homes clear over ask. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Net domestic migration | -3.0/1k | Below median33rd percentile | Census PEP (county) · PEP vintage 2025 | Net people moving in or out of the county, per 1,000 residents. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Building permits | 3.2/1k | Top 10%90th percentile | Census BPS (county) · BPS 2025 | New-construction permits per 1,000 homes. More means more supply coming. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Rent burden | 30% | Below median47th percentile | Census ACS B25071 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Median rent as a share of income. Higher means less headroom for increases. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Median year built | 1978 | Above median53rd percentile | Census ACS B25035 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024 | Age of the housing stock. Older stock carries more capex. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Max drawdown | 30% | Below median31st percentile | Zillow ZHVI · 2026-08-31 | Worst peak-to-trough home-value decline on record. Shown for context, not scored. |
| Violent crime | 31 /100k | Below median31st percentile · Stability | FBI CDE · 2023 | Reported violent-crime rate, municipal police department. Scored in the Stability category; property crime is scored too but shown here as the headline safety number. City-level data cannot resolve within-neighborhood risk. |
- † Job growth and unemployment are county-level (BLS LAUS, county FIPS 13215); large multi-county cities inherit their dominant county’s figures.
Where to go next from Columbus
Every link below is this market's own data taken one step further: its neighbours in the ranking, the same numbers side by side, or the same numbers in a calculator you can change.
Nearby in the Georgia rankings, and national look-alikes
- Lilburn, GAGrade B · score 55/100 · yield 6.9% · $393,705 · #1,313 nationalZillow ZHVI $162k (2000) to $394k (2026), +143%
- Monroe, GAGrade B · score 54/100 · yield 5.5% · $376,255 · #1,326 nationalZillow ZHVI $157k (2000) to $376k (2026), +140%
- Athens-Clarke County, GAGrade B · score 54/100 · yield 5.7% · $340,111 · #1,389 nationalZillow ZHVI $122k (2000) to $340k (2026), +178%
- Morrow, GAGrade B · score 54/100 · yield 8.1% · $221,387 · #1,425 nationalZillow ZHVI $128k (2000) to $221k (2026), +73%
- Sartell, MNGrade B · score 54/100 · yield 5.5% · $336,145 · #1,345 nationalZillow ZHVI $194k (2005) to $336k (2026), +73%
- Roy, UTGrade B · score 54/100 · yield 4.6% · $432,698 · #1,346 nationalZillow ZHVI $126k (2000) to $433k (2026), +244%
- St. Helens, ORGrade B · score 54/100 · yield 4.7% · $422,381 · #1,342 nationalZillow ZHVI $129k (2000) to $422k (2026), +229%
Compare Columbus head to head
- Columbus vs Lilburn vs SartellThe pre-filled matchup: nearest in-state rank and closest national grade.
- Columbus vs Monroe, GAGrade B · yield 5.5%
- Columbus vs Roy, UTGrade B · yield 4.6%
- Pick your own opponentAny of the 5,233 tracked cities.
Underwrite a Columbus deal
- Cap rateOpens on Columbus's own entry price and rent. Change either one.
- Cash flow & DSCRMonthly cash flow and DSCR, prefilled with this market's numbers.
- Mortgage paymentP&I on Columbus's entry price at the assumptions shown above.
- All marketsCompare Columbus against 4,812 ranked cities.
- Georgia ZIP CodesEvery Georgia ZIP Code area (Census ZCTAs), scored separately from the city rankings.
- Ranked listsYield, affordability, growth, stability, price band, or whether rent covers the mortgage.
- Where cash flow concentratesThe research behind why some states pair yield with growth and most don't.
For learning, not advice. A market screen from public data - not a forecast, not underwriting, not a recommendation to buy anywhere.