Buying can make sense if your family expects to use the condo for several years and the cost compares well with renting even if you sell for what you paid. If the numbers only work with a higher sale price, a cheaper mortgage down the road or a roommate paying rent every month, renting may be a better fit.

We’ve worked with families who wanted to buy one condo for two children to use while attending Auburn University. To see how that part of the market has changed, we reviewed 2,007 MLS closings over eight reporting periods. We focused on condos along Tiger Transit because families often look there for student housing. The study leaves out homes and condos away from those routes.^1, 2

The big gain came over several years. In the latest reporting period, the average sale price rose 2.65%, compared with 10.15% the year before.¹

What Eight Years of Auburn Condo Sales Show

The average sale price rose from $185,160 in the 2019 reporting period to $343,486 in 2026. That’s a difference of $158,326, or 85.51%, before adjusting for inflation. Average price per square foot rose from $148.83 to $306.80, an increase of 106.14%. Both averages reached a high in 2026. Which complexes and floor plans sold, and the condition of those units, can move both figures.¹

Sales peaked at 330 in 2021, fell to 183 in 2024 and recovered to 244 in 2026. That’s 14.02% more closings than in 2025 and 33.33% more than at the 2024 low. Compared with 2025, average time on market fell from 47 to 38 days, and the reported sale-to-list ratio slipped from 98.64% to 98.09%. The 38-day average covers condos that closed. If you plan to sell after graduation, budget for the possibility that yours takes longer.¹

How Quickly Did Prices Rise, and What Changed in 2026?

Average sale prices rose every year in the study. In 2026, the average sale price rose 2.65% and the average price per square foot rose 1.88%. Both were the smallest year-over-year increases in the study.¹

The bottom rows show the mean and median of the eight annual figures. Changes in the sale-to-list ratio are shown in percentage points. We estimated dollar volume by multiplying the number of closings by the reported average sale price. The median sale price across individual closings is Data Not Available.¹

What the National Housing Headlines Mean for Auburn Parents

Freddie Mac put the national average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage at 7.18% on November 5, 2026. The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s national index of single-family home prices rose 2.4% from August 2025 to August 2026. For your own budget, start with the lender’s Loan Estimate and check which monthly expenses you’ll pay separately.^10, 13, 15

Auburn University’s fall enrollment grew from 30,460 students in 2019 to 35,733 in 2026. A larger student body can mean more demand for housing, though these figures don’t say where students live or how many families buy. The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s house price index for the Auburn and Opelika metro area rose 66.61% from the second quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2026. It tracks single-family home values across the metro area, a broader benchmark for the condo sales in this study.^{4, 5, 6, 7}

Where the Case for Buying Gets Weaker

The national 30-year mortgage rate averaged 2.9% in the first half of 2021, the reporting year with the most local condo closings. The rate reached 7.79% on October 26, 2023, during a reporting period with fewer closings. In 2026, local sales rose even though the early-November mortgage rate was higher than the 6.22% recorded on November 6, 2025. Freddie Mac changed its survey method in November 2022, and the MLS summaries provide no breakdown of cash purchases, buyer financing or competing listings.^{1, 8, 9, 10, 11}

RealPage reported that 95.9% of the U.S. student housing beds it tracks were pre-leased by August for fall 2026, down from 96.5% for fall 2025. Leasing was strong at properties close to campus and at those more than a mile away. Those are national figures. For your comparison, get current rents and lease terms for the Auburn properties your students would actually consider.¹²

How to Compare Buying With Renting

Start with your students’ plans. Estimate when each child would move in and out. Include any months between siblings when the condo might sit empty, and run the numbers again assuming only one child uses it. Compare rentals with similar bedrooms, lease lengths, parking and utilities. Check whether the quoted rent covers one bedroom or the entire unit.

Compare what you’ll pay and what you’ll get back. Add up the down payment, purchase closing costs, mortgage payments, taxes, insurance, association dues, repairs and assessments over the time you expect to own. Count taxes or insurance only once if your mortgage payment already includes them. Condo dues are usually paid separately. From that total, subtract what you’d receive at sale after selling costs and the remaining loan balance. Consider what else you could do with the cash tied up in the purchase, and use a written Loan Estimate for your financing terms.^14, 15

Test the Condo Budget With a Flat or Lower Resale Price

Suppose you paid the 2026 average of $343,486. Selling at the same price would produce no gross price gain, and you would still pay selling costs. A sale at 10% below the purchase price would bring in $309,137.40 before selling costs, or $34,348.60 less than you paid. Both examples are hypothetical.¹

Before making an offer, review the association’s budget, reserves, insurance and pending assessments. Confirm the current Tiger Transit stop for the property, check the city’s occupancy rules for the address and read the association’s leasing restrictions. If you expect a roommate to help cover the costs, check whether you could still carry the condo without that rent.^2, 3

Questions Auburn Parents Ask

The Bottom Line for Auburn Families

Put a specific condo and a comparable rental side by side. If you expect both children to use the condo and the budget still works if you sell for less than you paid, buying may fit your family. If your children’s plans are still taking shape or you need to move on a fixed date, renting may give you more flexibility.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not provide investment advice. Past market performance does not guarantee future results.

Ask Me More See This Week’s Condo Market

Methodology and Limitations

The workbook has one row for each reporting year. Year 1 corresponds to 2026 and Year 8 to 2019. We kept the supplied day-back ranges and year labels. The intended reporting date is November 12, but counting back in fixed blocks shifts some endpoints. If November 12, 2026 is day zero and both ends are included, Year 1 runs from November 12, 2025 through November 12, 2026, Year 2 from November 12, 2024 through November 11, 2025, and Year 8 from November 14, 2018 through November 13, 2019. Year 1 includes 366 calendar dates. Individual closing dates and the original MLS search settings are Data Not Available.¹

Using roughly the same annual cutoff helps account for seasonality, but annual figures can’t show when changes happened within a year. The workbook does not specify the distance from a stop used to select condos, historical route coverage or who lived in each unit. The count may include units that sold more than once. Off-MLS sales, active and pending listings, concessions, the mix of new and resale units, individual sale prices and sizes, financing, rents and association costs are Data Not Available. The workbook also does not say which list-price field was used or whether relisting resets days on market.

We checked the year labels, recalculated changes and summary figures, and verified each dollar-volume estimate against the workbook formula. Those estimates are based on the average prices as reported and inherit any rounding in those prices.

Research and Sources

1. RealtyEdge Brokers, Condo Tiger Transit 8 years data.xlsx, November 12, 2026 reporting vintage. Supplied MLS summary, Sheet1, cells A1:G9.
2. Auburn University Transportation Services, Route Listing, undated, accessed November 12, 2026.
3. City of Auburn, Unrelated Occupancy, undated, accessed November 12, 2026.
4. Federal Housing Finance Agency, via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, All-Transactions House Price Index for Auburn-Opelika, AL (MSA), quarterly series ATNHPIUS12220Q, second-quarter observations for 2019 and 2026, accessed November 12, 2026.
5. Federal Housing Finance Agency, FHFA House Price Index®, methodology page, undated, accessed November 12, 2026.
6. Auburn University Institutional Research, CDS B 2019, Fall 2019 reporting edition.
7. Auburn University Institutional Research, Total Enrollment - Quick Facts, Fall 2026 Term Summary, accessed November 12, 2026.
8. Freddie Mac, Refinance Trends in the First Half of 2021, October 29, 2021.
9. Freddie Mac, More Borrowers Pay Discount Points, But It May Not Be Worth It, January 22, 2024.
10. Freddie Mac, Mortgage Market Survey Archive, Primary Mortgage Market Survey, November 5, 2026 observation.
11. Freddie Mac, via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average in the United States, weekly series MORTGAGE30US, November 6, 2025 observation and November 17, 2022 methodology note, accessed November 12, 2026.
12. Kim O’Brien, RealPage, Student Housing Pre-Leasing Finishes Near Record Highs for Fall 2026, September 9, 2026.
13. Federal Housing Finance Agency, U.S. House Price Index - October 2026, October 27, 2026.
14. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Are condo/co-op fees or homeowners’ association dues included in my monthly mortgage payment?, last reviewed September 11, 2024.
15. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Loan Estimate Explainer, undated, accessed November 12, 2026.