Pull up three different sites for Fairhope, Alabama right now and you will get three different answers to the same question. One shows a median sale price near $599,000. Another puts the number closer to $575,000. A third, measuring something slightly different, lands at $461,000. None of them are wrong. They are measuring three different markets that happen to share a zip code, and the reason they diverge traces back to a single decision the Fairhope City Council made in February 2025: stop approving new subdivision and multi-occupancy housing applications until the city finished rewriting its zoning code.
That freeze lasted more than eighteen months. It only fully lifted in mid-August 2026. Anyone comparing Fairhope to Daphne, Spanish Fort or Foley right now is looking at a market that just came out of an unusually long supply pause, and the price data reflects that pause more than it reflects any organic shift in what Fairhope homes are worth.
The Freeze Behind the Numbers
Fairhope's moratorium on larger residential projects began in February 2025, driven by what Mayor Sherry Sullivan has repeatedly called the top concern she hears from residents: managing growth without losing what makes the town feel like Fairhope. The city kept extending the pause in one-month increments while planners rewrote nine separate zoning ordinances, a process that dragged through a planning commission recommendation in September 2025, a public hearing in July 2026, and a council vote that finally landed on July 27, 2026. The moratorium itself expired around August 16, 2026, just weeks before this was written.
For a year and a half, that meant almost no new subdivision plats or multi-occupancy project applications could move through the pipeline inside city limits. Existing single-family homes, particularly the older stock downtown and in walkable neighborhoods near Mobile Bay, became the only real inventory buyers could compete over. That is the mechanism behind the price gap. Redfin's median sale price, calculated from actual closed transactions over the three months ending August 2026, sat at $599,000, up 10.6% from the same period a year earlier. Movoto's read on August 2026 closings put the median at $575,000. Zillow's typical value estimate, which smooths across the entire housing stock rather than just what is currently changing hands, came in at $461,041, up a comparatively modest 3.8% over the year.
The transaction-based numbers are pricier because what's actually selling right now skews toward the properties that weren't affected by the freeze: existing homes, not the new subdivisions the city wasn't approving. The value index is lower because it accounts for the full range of housing stock, including inland and older homes that aren't currently trading hands at all. Both numbers are accurate. They're just answering different questions, and the gap between them is a direct fingerprint of the moratorium.
There's a second clue in the same data. Redfin's price per square foot in Fairhope actually fell 7.9% year over year even as the median sale price rose 10.6%. That combination only makes sense if the homes selling right now are larger, on average, than the ones that sold a year ago. Buyers priced out of a constrained entry-level segment appear to be reaching for bigger homes instead, which pushes the median price up without pushing the per-square-foot cost up at the same rate. That's not a market getting more expensive across the board. It's a market where the mix of what's available shifted while supply was paused.
What the July 27 Vote Actually Changed
After a first attempt at the zoning overhaul got tabled in March 2026 following more than an hour of public pushback from architects, developers and longtime residents, the city split the package into smaller pieces and brought them back one at a time. Here's where each of the major pieces landed on July 27:
| Ordinance | Outcome | Effective Date |
|---|---|---|
| General cleanup and definitions | Adopted unanimously | Immediate |
| Multifamily and apartment rules | Adopted 4-1 | Immediate |
| PUD amendments (density caps, 3-acre minimum) | Passed 3-2 | Immediate |
| Impervious surface caps (30%-45% by district) | Adopted | Delayed to Jan. 1, 2027 |
| Downtown mixed-use density formula | Still being revised | Council directed staff to return within 30 days |
| Permitted-use tables (B-1, B-2, B-4) | Adopted | Immediate |
That last line matters more than it sounds. The permitted-use table changes remove single-family homes, duplexes and townhouses from the B-1 and B-2 zoning districts outright, and remove townhouses from B-4. Those three zones overlap much of downtown Fairhope. Anyone picturing a downtown teardown-and-rebuild as a single-family home, or a small duplex investment near Section Street, is now working inside a code that no longer permits that use by right in those specific districts.
The multifamily ordinance passing 4-1 signals the apartment and condo pipeline is unfrozen for the first time since early 2025, which is worth watching if you're comparing rental inventory across the Eastern Shore. The PUD amendments passing only 3-2, with a new three-acre minimum and density caps built in, tells you the council is still trying to prevent large-scale developments from using the PUD process to sidestep the density limits everyone else has to follow.
The impervious surface caps are the piece to flag if you're evaluating a downtown-adjacent lot with room to add a pool, a garage, or an addition. The rule ranges from 30% to 45% lot coverage depending on the district, and it's adopted, but not enforceable until January 1, 2027. Buy before that date on a lot with room to expand, and you're working under the old rules. Buy after, and you're working under the new cap.
The downtown mixed-use density question is the one still in motion. During the July 27 meeting, the city's planner walked the council through a formula that would translate square footage into an allowed number of dwelling units, and the numbers didn't sit well with everyone in the room. The study had suggested roughly 16.6 units per acre; the council was debating how to round that down toward something closer to 12. No final number was set that night. Staff was told to bring revised language back within 30 days, which means anyone evaluating a mixed-use project in the CBD right now is watching a number that hasn't finished moving.
The Development Still Working Through the System
The largest project sitting in this pipeline is Colony Village, a proposal for roughly 413 homes across 148 acres near the intersection of State Highway 104 and State Highway 181. The developers want to annex the land from Baldwin County's rural agricultural zoning into a city Planned Unit Development. As of the planning commission's last review, staff recommended holding the application over rather than approving it, flagging concerns about rear-loaded garages accessed by alleyways and setbacks as tight as 6 to 10 feet against a typical requirement of 20 to 24 feet. The developers had hoped to break ground on phase one in early 2027, with the full four-phase build-out estimated to take six years.
Whether or not Colony Village clears the process as proposed, it's a useful scale reference. A single project of that size, once it starts closing, would represent a meaningful jump in Fairhope's annual transaction count. For now it remains one more example of how much new supply has been sitting in the queue while the city finished its zoning rewrite.
What This Means If You're Comparing Fairhope to the Rest of the Eastern Shore
If you're cross-shopping Fairhope against Daphne, Spanish Fort or Foley using the median price on a national portal, you're comparing a market that just came off an eighteen-month supply freeze to markets that weren't under the same constraint. That doesn't make Fairhope more or less affordable in some abstract sense. It means the number you're looking at reflects a narrower slice of what actually sold, not the full range of what Fairhope housing is worth.
It also means the rules that will govern the next wave of construction only fully settled in the last few weeks. A downtown lot that looked buildable for a small multi-family project eighteen months ago now falls under permitted-use tables that don't allow it. A lot with room to expand still has a runway before the new coverage caps apply, but that runway closes January 1, 2027. And the exact number of units a downtown mixed-use project can include is still being negotiated inside city hall.
None of this is a reason to avoid Fairhope. It's a reason to ask specific questions before assuming a number you saw on a screen tells you the whole story: which zoning district is this parcel in under the code amended July 27, is the project you're considering affected by the density formula still being revised, and does the timeline on any planned addition fall before or after the impervious surface cap takes effect.
If you're weighing Fairhope against another town on the Eastern Shore and want someone who's tracked exactly which zoning lines moved and when, that's the kind of groundwork The Beach to Bay Group does before you ever tour a home.
