Housing
While detailed antebellum homes and other historic residences remain very much a part of Athens’ available real estate, the past several years have brought a tremendous building boom in residential properties, starting at a fairly moderate pace in about 1999 and exploding into the current (2002 to 2005) rapid pace of construction. Nearly four times as many permits for new residential construction were issued in 2004 as in 1996 or 1997. Athens is a college town, so median information about age and income include quite a few student households. The media household income has hovered around $30,000 for the past several years, while 2000’s median house value of $112,000 has held similarly fairly steady.