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Huntsville Neighborhoods, huntsville real estate market, market trends, Seller TipsPublished October 7, 2026
Twickenham and Old Town Home Prices in 2026: A Huntsville Historic District Market Report
Team Nemec · 2026 Neighborhood Market Report
Twickenham & Old Town Home Prices in 2026
Four sellers in Huntsville’s two oldest historic districts got every dollar they asked for this year. Four others gave up $1.45 million between them. The difference was not the houses.
The short answer
Nine homes closed in Twickenham and Old Town between January 1 and September 5, 2026, at a median of $875,000 and $339.58 per square foot — the second-highest price per foot of any Huntsville neighborhood in this series, on a median home of only 1,956 square feet. Among the six sales that report a year built, the median is 1932; one of the nine was built in 1840.
Here you are not buying space. You are buying architecture, address and the fact that they cannot be reproduced.
And here is the number every owner in these districts should sit with. Four of the nine sold within two weeks — every one of them at 100% of its original asking price. The four that took seventy-five days or more closed at a median 83.1% of theirs. Between them, those four sellers gave up $1,449,900.
$875,000Median closed sale price across 9 salesValleyMLS, Jan 1 – Sep 5, 2026
$339.58Median price per square foot — second only to The LedgesValleyMLS, 2026 YTD
1,956 sq ftMedian home size — second smallest in this series, after Five PointsValleyMLS, 2026 YTD
93.8%Median sale price as a share of asking priceThe weakest of the six neighborhoods
4 of 9Sold within two weeks — all four at 100% of original askValleyMLS, 2026 YTD
$1,449,900Given up by the four sellers who took 75 days or moreValleyMLS, 2026 YTD
Section one
Nine houses, and the range between them
Twickenham and Old Town together produced nine closed sales this year, from $294,000 to $2,400,000.
Closed sale prices, Twickenham & Old Town, 2026 year to date
Source: ValleyMLS closed-sale data, January 1 – September 5, 2026. n = 9.
An eight-to-one spread across nine houses is not what most neighborhoods look like. It is what a district assembled over a hundred and fifty years looks like. A 1,136-square-foot cottage and a 4,859-square-foot Newman Avenue estate are both, accurately, Twickenham.
Two districts, one report — and why. Twickenham and Old Town are separate historic districts with separate designation dates, separate boundaries and meaningfully different housing stock. They are reported together here for a practical reason: nine combined sales is a thin market, and splitting it into two would produce two reports of four and five houses each. The rules, the pressures and the buyer pool are close enough that the combined picture is honest. Where the two differ materially, this report says so.
$339.58Median price per square foot — second only to The LedgesValleyMLS, 2026 YTD
1,956Median square feet — second smallest of the six, after Five PointsValleyMLS, 2026 YTD
1932Median year built, among the six sales reporting one. The oldest was built in 1840.ValleyMLS, 2026 YTD
Hold those first two numbers together, because they are the whole economic story of these districts. The most expensive square footage in Huntsville outside a gated golf community, attached to some of the smallest houses in this study. A Twickenham buyer is not buying room. They are buying a Federal doorway, a hundred-year-old oak, a walk to Big Spring Park, and a house that legally cannot be replicated on that lot or any other.
The single highest price per foot of the year — $499.69 — was on Echols Avenue. The lowest, $239.11, was a home on Holmes Avenue built in 1840, which sold in zero days at slightly above its asking price. Age alone does not set the price here. Condition, scale and street do.
Section two — the finding this report exists for
Four sellers got everything. Four gave up $1.45 million.
How far below the original asking price homes sold, by time on market
Source: ValleyMLS, Twickenham & Old Town closed sales, 2026 YTD. Compares final sale price to the original list price. Bands contain 4, 1 and 4 sales.
Four homes went under contract within two weeks. Every single one closed at 100% of its original asking price — and one of them, the 1840 house on Holmes Avenue, closed slightly above it.
Four homes took seventy-five days or more. Here is what that cost:
| Home | Originally asked | Days on market | Sold for | Gave up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 421 Echols Avenue SE | $3,100,000 | 75 | $2,400,000 | $700,000 |
| 420 Newman Avenue | $1,995,000 | 96 | $1,650,000 | $345,000 |
| 410 Newman Avenue SE | $1,795,000 | 108 | $1,500,000 | $295,000 |
| 505 Clinton Avenue E | $729,900 | 177 | $620,000 | $109,900 |
| Four sellers | $1,449,900 |
Source: ValleyMLS closed-sale records, January 1 – September 5, 2026. “Gave up” is the difference between the original list price and the final sale price.
Nearly one and a half million dollars, across four houses, in one neighborhood, in eight months. Every one of those homes eventually sold. Every one of them sold to a buyer who was in the market the entire time it sat.
The honest version of this. These are correlations, not proofs. A house can take 177 days because it opened too high, or because it has a condition problem, or because a 1900 cottage on Clinton Avenue simply has a narrow buyer pool. All three explanations produce the same chart. But notice that the four fast sales include a $900,000 Eustis Avenue home and an $875,000 house on Greene Street — this is not a case of cheap houses selling fast and expensive ones sitting. Price level did not determine speed. The relationship between the asking price and the house did.
The dynamic is sharper in a small district than anywhere else in this study. Twickenham and Old Town together have a few hundred contributing structures and produce roughly nine sales a year. The buyers who want a historic home in downtown Huntsville are a small, informed, patient group who watch this market continuously. They see your listing in week one. If the number is wrong, they do not forget it in week twelve.
Section three — the receipts
Every historic district sale of 2026, listed
| Address | Built | Sq ft | Beds / baths | Days on market | Sold for | $ / sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 421 Echols Avenue SE | — | 4,803 | 3 / 5 | 75 | $2,400,000 | $500 |
| 420 Newman Avenue | 1935 | 4,859 | 3 / 5 | 96 | $1,650,000 | $340 |
| 410 Newman Avenue SE | 1950 | 4,741 | 4 / 4 | 108 | $1,500,000 | $316 |
| 405 Eustis Avenue SE | 1930 | 3,290 | 4 / 3 | 2 | $900,000 | $274 |
| 707 Greene Street | — | 1,956 | 3 / 3 | 13 | $875,000 | $447 |
| 505 Clinton Avenue E | 1900 | 1,647 | 3 / 2 | 177 | $620,000 | $376 |
| 423 Newman Avenue SE | — | 1,499 | 3 / 2 | 6 | $515,000 | $344 |
| 707 NE Holmes Avenue NE | 1840 | 1,929 | 3 / 1 | 0 | $461,250 | $239 |
| 2015 SE Stanford Drive SE | 1941 | 1,136 | 3 / 1 | 33 | $294,000 | $259 |
Section four — the thing that makes selling here different
The Certificate of Appropriateness, and why it belongs in your timeline
Twickenham and Old Town are locally designated historic districts. That is not a plaque. It is a permitting regime, and it has a calendar.
Exterior work on a home inside either district requires a Certificate of Appropriateness (COA) from the Huntsville Historic Preservation Commission before it can be done. Most owners know this in the abstract. Fewer have looked closely at what it covers — and almost nobody thinks about it until a buyer's inspector hands them a repair list eleven days before closing.
Requires a COA
- Exterior alteration, restoration or renovation
- Additions
- New construction — including walls, fences, pools, antennas and solar collectors
- Demolition or removal
- Painting a previously unpainted surface
- Signs
Exempt
- Interior work that does not affect the exterior
- Repainting in the previous colors
- Replacing window glass only
- Reroofing in identical material and color
- Landscaping with no terrain change and no feature removal
The calendar is the part that costs money
| Review type | What it covers | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Full Commission review | Anything not on the expedited list — additions, new construction, demolition, substantive exterior alteration | Applications due by the last Monday of the month. The Commission meets the second Monday at 4:30 p.m. A representative must attend, or the request is denied. $15 fee. Approval is valid 12 months and may be extended 6. |
| Expedited staff review | Routine repairs, paint and roof color changes, window alterations, mechanical units, decks, gutters, demolition of non-contributing outbuildings | Submit any time |
Source: City of Huntsville Historic Preservation application requirements. Verify current procedure before relying on it.
Read that top row as a seller. If a buyer's inspection turns up a rotted porch column, failing siding or a window that has to be replaced rather than reglazed, you may not be able to cure it inside a normal contract period. Miss the last-Monday deadline and the next meeting is roughly six weeks out. Send nobody to the meeting and you are denied and waiting another month.
What to do about it, concretely. Get your exterior inspected before you list, not after you are under contract. In these two districts a pre-listing inspection is not a nicety — it is the difference between handling a repair on your schedule and handling it on the Commission's. If something needs a COA, you want that application filed before a buyer ever sees the house.
And confirm your parcel is actually in the district. The locally designated boundaries — the ones that determine whether you need a COA — were set by city ordinance on different dates than the National Register listings, and were amended separately. The National Register boundary you find on Wikipedia is not necessarily the regulated boundary. The authority is the City's Historic Home Locator Map, or a call to the Historic Preservation Planner at 256-650-4779. Two houses on the same block can carry different obligations.
Section five
If you are selling in Twickenham or Old Town
1
Your opening number is worth more than your marketing
Four sellers opened at a defensible price and got 100% of it. Four opened high and gave up a median 16.9%. In a district producing nine sales a year, there is no second first impression.
2
Handle the COA before you list
A pre-listing exterior inspection and, if needed, a COA application filed early. The Commission's monthly calendar does not adjust to your closing date.
3
Do not price on square footage
The nine sales ran from $239 to $500 per square foot on homes from 1,136 to 4,859 feet. Per-foot math is close to meaningless here. Your value is in period detail, condition, street and provenance — things a spreadsheet cannot see and a buyer pays a premium for.
4
Know that your buyer pool is small, informed and patient
They are not going to overpay because they love the staircase. They already know what the last four Newman Avenue houses did. Price as though your buyer has read this report, because the serious ones have read something like it.
5
Document what you have
Period features, restoration work, prior COAs, any National Register documentation on your specific house. In a market where the product is history, evidence of that history is a marketing asset, and its absence is a discount.
Four sellers in these two districts got every dollar they asked. Four gave up $1,449,900. Same year, same nine-house market, same buyers.
Section six
If you are buying in Twickenham or Old Town
What is working in your favor
- Patience pays extraordinarily well here. The four homes that took seventy-five days or more sold at a median 83.1% of their original prices. On this street that is six figures.
- The entry point is lower than people assume. Three of the nine sales closed under $520,000 — at $294,000, $461,250 and $515,000, the last a 1,499-square-foot home on Newman Avenue. Twickenham is not exclusively a seven-figure district.
- The supply is genuinely fixed. No one is building more antebellum houses. Whatever you buy, you are buying the scarce version of it.
What to go in knowing
- The COA applies to you too. Every exterior plan you have for the house — the fence, the pool, the addition, painting the brick — goes through the Commission. Read Section four before you make an offer, not after.
- Correctly priced homes go immediately. Four of nine sold within two weeks at full price. The negotiation is available on the mispriced ones only.
- Get the exterior inspected properly. Nothing in this report asserts what specific defects these houses carry — that is what an inspector is for, and on a home built in 1840 it is not optional.
Section seven
The two districts, briefly
Twickenham
Huntsville's first locally designated historic district, by city ordinance on March 23, 1972, and listed on the National Register on January 4, 1973 with a boundary increase in 2015. Roughly 198 acres containing about 360 contributing buildings. The period of significance runs 1814 to 1964.
The name predates the city's. LeRoy Pope bought the land in 1809 and named the settlement Twickenham after the English home of the poet Alexander Pope. The town was later renamed Huntsville; the neighborhood kept the original. Architect George Gilliam Steele introduced Federal and Greek Revival to Huntsville from about 1818 and added the six-column Doric portico to the Pope mansion in the 1840s.
Twickenham holds the densest concentration of antebellum homes in Alabama — more than sixty-five — alongside Queen Anne, Italianate, Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, Craftsman and, yes, mid-century Ranch. The National Register nomination calls it a living museum of architecture. The 1819 Weeden House Museum is open to the public.
Old Town
Huntsville's second district, designated December 12, 1974 and listed on the National Register July 18, 1978, with a boundary increase announced in 2015. About 96 acres and roughly 376 contributing buildings, with a period of significance running from about 1830 to 1962.
Old Town is described by the City as the only complete section of Huntsville displaying a true Victorian character. Most of its houses were built between 1880 and 1929 — one- and two-story frame homes in Queen Anne, Second Empire and Eastlake, many with decorative bargeboard, giving way to Colonial Revival and Craftsman bungalows in the 1920s and 30s.
Its growth was industrial: the Memphis & Charleston Railroad depot, the city's first cotton mill, and Dallas Mill just north. The district itself exists because architect Harvie Jones proposed it in 1973 and homeowners Charles E. and Frances J. Rice drove the petition through.
One caution about aggregator maps. Homes.com's “Twickenham Historic District” polygon contains about 142 homes, against roughly 360 contributing buildings in the actual district. The polygon a real estate website draws is not the regulated district and should never be used to decide whether a COA applies to your house. Use the City's map.
Flood
Citywide, roughly 29 square miles and more than 6,000 developed properties in Huntsville sit within the 100-year floodplain — about 17% of city land. Huntsville holds CRS Class 8 status, which earns residents a 10% NFIP premium reduction, and NFIP policies carry a 30-day waiting period. Flood status is a parcel-level question. Check the City flood map or call Engineering at 256-427-5300 for a specific address.
Section ten
How Twickenham & Old Town compares
Price per square foot is the cleanest way to compare neighborhoods that hold very different houses.
Median closed price per square foot, by neighborhood
Source: ValleyMLS closed-sale data. Twickenham & Old Town highlighted. Figures are medians of closed sales in each neighborhood for the periods stated in each report.
The rest of the series
This is one of six neighborhood-level reports built from closed MLS sales rather than automated estimates. Each one shows every sale behind its numbers.
- Five Points — The slowest and most negotiable market in this series, and the most affordable way into the historic districts.
- Blossomwood — Mid-century houses on big lots at the foot of Monte Sano, with no historic review. Half sold within two weeks.
- Jones Valley — The only neighborhood where the median seller got 100% of asking — and the most square footage per dollar anywhere in this series.
- Piedmont — The fastest contracts in the city — a median 6.5 days — and only ten sales all year.
- The Ledges — Huntsville's gated golf community at the highest point in the city. Five sales in twelve months.
No cost, no obligation
What is your Twickenham & Old Town home actually worth in this market?
Not an automated estimate. Ben will look at your specific house against the Twickenham & Old Town sales in this report — condition, size, position, what sold near you and what it really netted — and come back with a defensible number and the reasoning behind it. If the answer is “now is not your moment,” he will tell you that too.
Email isn't working from this device? Write to bmnemec@gmail.com directly, or call (256) 361-5593.
Questions people ask
Twickenham & Old Town market questions, answered
What is the average home price in Twickenham and Old Town in 2026?
The median closed sale price is $875,000 across nine sales in Huntsville's Twickenham and Old Town historic districts between January 1 and September 5, 2026, per ValleyMLS closed-sale records. The average was $1,023,917, and individual sales ranged from $294,000 to $2,400,000. With nine sales in an eight-to-one price range, the median describes the middle but not the market — every sale is listed individually in this report for that reason.
Why is price per square foot so high in Twickenham?
The median is $339.58 per square foot — the second highest of any Huntsville neighborhood in this series — on a median home of only 1,956 square feet. Those two facts are the same fact. Buyers in these districts are paying for period architecture, downtown proximity and irreplaceable supply, not for space. Per-square-foot math is a poor valuation tool here; the 2026 sales ranged from $239 to $500 per foot on homes of similar vintage.
Do homes in Huntsville's historic districts sell for asking price?
It depends almost entirely on how long they sit. Four of the nine 2026 sales went under contract within two weeks and every one closed at 100% of its original asking price — one slightly above. The four that took seventy-five days or more closed at a median 83.1%, giving up $1,449,900 between them. The overall median sale-to-list was 93.8%, the weakest of the six neighborhoods measured.
Do I need a Certificate of Appropriateness to renovate in Twickenham or Old Town?
Yes, for exterior work. Both are locally designated historic districts under the Huntsville Historic Preservation Commission. A COA is required for exterior alteration, restoration or renovation; additions; new construction including walls, fences, pools, antennas and solar collectors; demolition or removal; painting a previously unpainted surface; and signs. Interior work not affecting the exterior, repainting in the same colors, replacing window glass only, and reroofing in identical material and color are exempt. Full Commission review requires an application by the last Monday of the month for a meeting on the second Monday, and a representative must attend or the request is denied. Verify current procedure with the Historic Preservation office at 256-650-4779.
How long does a Certificate of Appropriateness take?
Routine items — repairs, paint and roof color changes, window alterations, mechanical units, decks, gutters — can go through expedited staff review and be submitted any time. Anything more substantive goes to the full Commission, which meets monthly, with applications due by the last Monday of the preceding month. In practice that means a full review can add four to six weeks or more, and missing a deadline pushes you a full month. This is why a pre-listing exterior inspection matters so much in these districts — a repair discovered during a buyer's inspection may not be curable inside a normal contract period.
Is my house actually in the historic district?
Do not assume, and do not rely on a real estate website's neighborhood boundary. The locally designated boundaries that determine COA obligations were set by city ordinance on different dates than the National Register listings and amended separately, so the two are not identical. Homes.com's Twickenham polygon, for example, contains about 142 homes against roughly 360 contributing buildings in the real district. The authoritative source is the City of Huntsville's Historic Home Locator Map, or a call to the Historic Preservation Planner at 256-650-4779.
How old are the homes in Twickenham and Old Town?
Among the six sales reporting a year built, the median is 1932 — and one of the nine was built in 1840. Twickenham's period of significance runs from 1814 to 1964 and it holds the densest concentration of antebellum homes in Alabama — more than sixty-five. Old Town's runs from about 1830 to 1962, with most of its houses built between 1880 and 1929, and the City describes it as the only complete section of Huntsville displaying a true Victorian character.
Is now a good time to sell a historic home in Huntsville?
The market is there — four of nine homes sold at full asking price this year, including an $875,000 house on Greene Street and a $900,000 house on Eustis Avenue. But this is the least forgiving neighborhood in Huntsville for a pricing mistake: the four sellers who opened above the market gave up an average of $362,000 each. The answer for your specific house depends on its condition, its period features, and whether any exterior work would need Commission approval before a buyer's inspector finds it. That is worth working through before you list, not after.
About the author
Ben Nemec — Associate Broker, Team Nemec at Capstone Realty | PLACE
Ben works with buyers and sellers across the greater Huntsville area, with a particular focus on the neighborhoods inside the loop — Blossomwood, Jones Valley, the historic districts, and the mountain communities. He builds these reports from ValleyMLS closed-sale data rather than automated estimates, because a homeowner deciding whether to sell deserves to see the sales the conclusion rests on.
Call or text (256) 361‑5593 · bmnemec@gmail.com · huntsvillehomesforyou.com
Sources and method
Sale data. All sale prices, sizes, days on market, list prices, concessions and year-built figures in this report come from ValleyMLS closed-sale records for Twickenham & Old Town, covering January 1 – September 5, 2026, exported September 5, 2026. Medians, percentiles and groupings were calculated from those records. Every sale behind every figure is listed in Section six — nothing here is an automated valuation estimate.
What "days on market" means here. Where this report groups sales by time on market it uses cumulative days on market (CDOM), which follows a property across relistings, rather than the days counted against the current listing alone. It is the more honest measure of how long a house was actually available.
Two different list-price comparisons appear in this report, and the difference matters. The headline “share of asking price” figure and the “at or above list” counts compare the sale price to the list price the home carried when it went under contract — the conventional sale-to-list measure. The time-on-market charts and the “gave up” figures compare the sale price to the original list price, so a mid-listing reduction shows up as what it is. Each is labeled where it appears.
Context and background figures are attributed inline where used. Principal outside sources:
- Redfin ZIP 35801 housing market data — three months ending July 2026
- City of Huntsville Historic Preservation Commission — historic district designation and Certificate of Appropriateness requirements
- City of Huntsville flood information and the City flood map
- City of Huntsville historic preservation application requirements — COA scope, exemptions, meeting calendar, fees
- City of Huntsville Historic Home Locator Map — the authoritative district boundaries
- Twickenham National Register nomination — acreage, resource counts, period of significance
- Old Town Historic District history and the Old Town National Register nomination
- Encyclopedia of Alabama: Twickenham Historic District — LeRoy Pope, George Steele, founding history
What this report does not claim. Neighborhood boundaries in Huntsville are frequently informal and different sources draw them differently. School zoning, flood zone, historic-district status and any covenant or HOA obligation are parcel-level questions and must be confirmed for a specific address with Huntsville City Schools, City Engineering, the Historic Preservation office and a title search respectively. Nothing here is a substitute for that.
Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. This report is not an appraisal. Team Nemec at Capstone Realty | PLACE. Equal Housing Opportunity.
Ben Nemec
Associate Broker | Team Leader | Team Nemec | Capstone Realty | PLACE
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