Here's the honest version: Auburn is a small Southern city that runs on a very large university, and that single fact shapes almost everything about living here. It sets what homes cost, when traffic gets ugly, how quiet July feels, and why half the statistics you'll read about this town are a little bit wrong.
I sell homes in Auburn, Opelika, and out at Lake Martin, and I talk to relocating buyers almost every week. Most of them arrive having read three or four "living in Auburn" articles written by people who have never driven Dean Road at 4:45 on a Tuesday. So this guide does something those pages don't. Every number below is cited, and where I couldn't verify a number, I tell you instead of making one up.
The Bottom Line
- Auburn had 83,761 residents (Census ACS 2024 one-year estimate) while Auburn University enrolled 35,172 students in Fall 2025. Students equal roughly 42% of the city's population.
- That ratio explains the good parts: real restaurants, a compact downtown, energy. It also explains the annoying parts. August move-in weekend, home football Saturdays, and a town that empties out in summer.
- Auburn's median household income was $69,615 and the ACS median value of owner-occupied homes was $392,900 (both 2024 one-year estimates). That value figure is what owners say their homes are worth, not a median sale price. Those are different things.
- Mean commute to work: 19.9 minutes. This is one of the genuinely great things about life here and nobody talks about it enough.
- Alabama property taxes are low compared with most of the country. I'm not going to publish a rate, because it depends on the exact parcel. Verify yours with the Lee County Revenue Commissioner before you budget.
The one number that explains Auburn
If you only remember one thing from this guide, remember this comparison.
Auburn University's enrollment equals roughly 42% of the city's resident population, which is why the calendar matters more here than in most towns.
Auburn's population was 83,761 in the Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey one-year estimates. Auburn University enrolled 35,172 students in Fall 2025, according to the university's Office of Institutional Research. Auburn City Schools serves more than 9,400 students across 14 campuses.
Do that math and you get a city where about four in ten people counted are university students. Practically, that means Auburn has amenities a city of 84,000 has no business having. It also means the town has a heartbeat set by an academic calendar. You'll feel it in traffic, in restaurant waits, and in how many houses hit the market in spring.
What the other "living in Auburn" pages get wrong
This is the part I actually want you to read, because it will save you from a bad budget.
When I looked at the top results for "living in Auburn AL" in August 2026, most were pages built by national aggregators with no connection to Lee County. They repeat the same handful of claims, and I couldn't find a primary source cited for a single number on the ones I checked. Two specific problems:
The demographic numbers are distorted, and nobody says so. Auburn's median age in the 2024 ACS one-year estimates was 24.2 years, and the measured poverty rate was 23.2%. Read cold, that looks like a struggling town full of very young people. It isn't.
Both figures are what happens when you count 35,000 university students as residents. Most have a dorm address, a part-time job, and a bank balance disconnected from the local economy. The same distortion pulls down the median household income figure. Auburn's owner-occupied, non-student households almost certainly look different from the citywide averages, so don't use those averages as a stand-in for your own math.
The cost-of-living claim has no source. You'll see "Auburn is about 8% below the national average" on several of those pages. I went looking for the methodology, the index, the publisher, anything. I couldn't find one. Don't build a relocation budget on a number nobody will stand behind. Build it on your actual quotes: the tax bill for the specific parcel, a real insurance quote, and a real utility history.
That's the honest gap in the current search results, and it's the reason I wrote this.
What it actually costs to live here
About that "median home price" you saw
The 2024 ACS one-year estimates put the median value of owner-occupied homes in Auburn at $392,900. That number gets copied around as "the median home price in Auburn," which is not what it measures. ACS value is what homeowners estimate their own home is worth, across every owner-occupied house standing in the city, new and old, updated and not.
A median sale price is a different animal. It reflects what actually closed, in a specific window, in a specific area. For published Alabama sales data, the Alabama Center for Real Estate at the University of Alabama is the right place to look. For what's happening in one Auburn zone this month, send me the area and the price band and I'll pull the last 90 days of closings for you. That's a five-minute favor, not a sales pitch.
Property taxes, and why I won't quote you a rate
Alabama's property taxes are genuinely low by national standards, and this is one of the real financial arguments for moving here. Buyers coming from the Northeast, the Midwest, or California are often shocked by their first tax bill in a good way.
I'm still not going to print a millage rate in a blog post. Rates depend on whether a property sits inside Auburn city limits, inside Opelika, or out in unincorporated Lee County, and they get adjusted. A number that's right today and wrong next year is worse than no number.
Do this instead. Look the parcel up with the Lee County Revenue Commissioner, and read the Alabama Department of Revenue's property tax division on assessment classes and homestead exemptions. Alabama has homestead exemptions that meaningfully change an owner-occupant's bill, so ask what you'd qualify for. Or text me an address and I'll get you the current bill on that exact parcel.
Income context
Median household income in Auburn was $69,615 in the 2024 ACS one-year estimates, with per capita income at $35,447. Both carry the student caveat above. If you're relocating with an out-of-state salary, the useful comparison isn't Auburn's median income. It's your housing payment here versus your housing payment there.
The commute is the quiet luxury
Mean travel time to work in Auburn was 19.9 minutes in the ACS 2024 five-year estimates. (Commute time comes from the five-year release, not the one-year release the figures above use.)
I don't think people moving from a metro area understand what that does to a week. Do the arithmetic against an hour-each-way commute and you're saving about 80 minutes a day, which is more than 300 hours over a working year. That's the whole reason a lot of my clients stop looking at bigger cities. You can live on the east side, work near campus, and still be home before the game starts.
The exception is home football Saturdays, and a couple of weekday windows near campus and the school zones. More on that below.
Schools, by the numbers
Auburn City Schools currently publishes these district figures: 14 campuses, more than 9,400 students, 1,174 full-time employees, and a 15:1 student-teacher ratio. The district doesn't date that page, so treat it as current-as-published rather than a fixed school year.
Here's my honest advice on schools, and it applies no matter what any article tells you. Don't take "best schools in the state" from a blog, including this one. Pull the actual data from the Alabama State Department of Education report card portal, then call the district directly to confirm which school an address is zoned for. Attendance zones change as the district grows.
A zone that was true two years ago may not be true for the house you're touring. Getting it wrong is expensive, so verify against the exact address, not the subdivision name.
I go deeper on how Auburn City Schools zones are actually set up, and why that matters before you write an offer, in how Auburn City Schools really work.
The university, in one chart
Undergraduates make up about 82% of Auburn University's Fall 2025 enrollment, and total enrollment grew by 1,027 students year over year.
Auburn University enrolled 28,953 undergraduates and 6,219 graduate and professional students in Fall 2025. Total enrollment rose from 34,145 the previous fall, a gain of 1,027 students in one year.
Why should a homebuyer care? Because that growth lands in the housing market. More students means steady pressure on rentals near campus and more competition for well-located smaller homes. It also means reliable investor appetite for anything close to campus. If you're buying to live in, it's useful to know which pockets are quietly becoming rental streets. If you're buying to rent out, it's the whole thesis.
The honest downsides
Every relocation guide gets sunny here. I'd rather you hear it from me now than find out in October.
Home football Saturdays
On game weekends, this town's population multiplies. Roads near campus lock up, restaurants have waits you wouldn't believe, and if you didn't plan your errands around it, you're not doing errands. Locals learn the rhythm fast and either lean into it (it is genuinely a great time) or leave town for the day. What you should not do is buy a house without asking how it sits relative to game-day traffic patterns. That's a fair question to put to any agent, and the answer should be specific.
August, and then July
Move-in weekend is chaos. Late summer brings tens of thousands of people back at once, and it's the least fun week of the year to be in a moving truck.
Then the flip side. Summer is quiet. Streets clear out, some restaurants shorten hours, and the town exhales. Plenty of people love that. Some find it eerie the first year, especially if they moved from somewhere that never slows down.
Weather
Summers are hot and humid, and I mean the kind of humid where you change shirts. Winters are mild and short. Spring brings Alabama's severe weather season, and it's taken seriously here for good reason. I'd rather point you to the real climatology than paraphrase it, so check the National Weather Service Birmingham office for regional severe-weather patterns and NOAA's U.S. Climate Normals for temperature and rainfall. When you tour a house, ask about the safe space. It's a normal question here.
Getting on a plane
This is the tradeoff nobody warns relocating buyers about. Auburn doesn't have its own commercial hub. For most flights, people drive to Atlanta. Closer regional airports exist, with far fewer options. If you travel for work every week, price that drive into your decision before you fall in love with a house.
It's a small city, and it acts like one
The nightlife is a college town's nightlife. Big-city retail and specialty medical care mean a drive. Word travels. Your contractor knows your neighbor. Most people who move here consider that last part a feature, but it's a real change if you're coming from anonymity.
Auburn, Opelika, or out at the lake?
Three different lives, and the right answer depends on what you're optimizing for.
Auburn | Opelika | Lake Martin | |
|---|---|---|---|
You're buying | Proximity to campus, Auburn City Schools zoning, a compact downtown | Its own downtown and character, generally more house for the money | Waterfront or water access, weekend-into-lifestyle living |
Commute reality | Shortest to campus and to most in-town jobs | Short drive into Auburn | Longest, and the one to test before you commit |
Price pressure | Highest of the three per square foot | Lower than Auburn city | Driven by water frontage more than by square footage |
Extra diligence | Confirm the school zone against the exact address | Confirm city limits, which affect taxes and services | Water depth, seawall, dock permitting, how the cove behaves in August |
Auburn is the choice if you want to be close to campus and inside the Auburn City Schools system.
Opelika sits right next door with its own downtown and its own character. Your money generally stretches further, and the commute into Auburn stays short. A lot of buyers who start out convinced they need an Auburn address end up happy here.
Lake Martin is a different decision entirely. Ask what that drive feels like in the dark in January, not just what the cove looks like in June. Full-time lake living works beautifully for some people and wears on others.
If you're torn, start with your three non-negotiables and a realistic drive-time limit. That usually narrows it to two areas fast. For the price-per-square-foot specifics behind this comparison, see what your money actually gets you in Auburn, Opelika, and Lake Martin. And if you want to go block by block, my neighborhood guides go deeper than any of this.
Questions I get asked most
Is Auburn a good place to live if I'm not into football? Yes, and you'll still plan around it. On home game Saturdays each fall, the town belongs to the stadium. The rest of the year, it's a quiet, green, easy place to live.
Can I buy here without visiting? People do it constantly, especially relocating buyers who can only get here once. What makes it work is someone on the ground who'll walk a house on video and tell you the unflattering things. That's most of what I do for out-of-state clients.
Is Auburn expensive? Relative to Alabama, the Auburn city market is on the higher end. Relative to the metros most of my relocating clients come from, housing and property taxes usually come in lower. Both are true, which is why the citywide averages aren't much use to you. Your number depends on your zone and your price band.
Should I trust the online estimate on my current home? Treat it as a starting point, not an answer. An automated estimate can't see your renovations, your lot, or your street. A real comparative market analysis can.
When's the best time to buy in Auburn? Inventory generally opens up in spring, along with the competition. Late fall and winter are quieter, with fewer choices and often less bidding pressure. The honest answer is that the right time is when your life is ready, not when a blog says so.
If you're thinking about Auburn
I'd tell you if I thought Auburn wasn't right for you. Some people need a bigger city, an airport out the back door, or four real seasons, and that's a fine thing to know about yourself before you move. If you're weighing this for retirement specifically rather than a relocation, I've written a separate guide on that decision.
For everyone else, this is a town where a 20-minute commute is normal and the neighbors show up. A Saturday here in the fall feels like something you'll tell people about. I've made my whole life here.
If you're thinking about buying or selling in Auburn, Opelika, or on Lake Martin, reach out. Send me an address and I'll get you the real tax bill and the real recent sales, no obligation. I'd love to help. There's more about how I work if you want to know who you'd be dealing with first, and more Auburn-area guides here.
Amy Cotney is a licensed REALTOR® (AL Lic# 108235) with ROOTS Real Estate Investment Development, 235 N Gay St, Auburn, AL 36830. Call or text (334) 332-4002, or email [email protected]. Online home value estimates are a starting point only and are not a formal comparative market analysis or appraisal. Nothing here is legal, tax, or lending advice. Equal Housing Opportunity.
Sources
- Auburn University, Office of Institutional Research: Total enrollment quick facts, Fall 2025
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 estimates for Auburn city, Alabama, via Census Reporter
- Auburn City Schools published district figures
- Alabama State Department of Education report card portal
- Lee County Revenue Commissioner for parcel-level property tax
- Alabama Department of Revenue, Property Tax Division
- Alabama Center for Real Estate, University of Alabama for state and county sales data
- National Weather Service, Birmingham and NOAA U.S. Climate Normals
- City of Auburn for municipal services and zoning
Featured image: "Auburn campus with Samford Hall" by dregsplod, licensed under CC BY 2.0. Cropped.
