Alexander, Iowa.
Typical home $179,595 (+10.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$518 (+122%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,199 +11%
- $162,396$179,595 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $43,495 +32%
- $136,100$179,595 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Alexander$943
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Alexander, IA rose 10.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Alexander, Franklin County, Iowa
Alexander is a city of 164 people in Franklin County. Unemployment in Franklin County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 2.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Franklin County work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Alexander is a very small city in Franklin County, Iowa, where homes cost less than in much of the country and household incomes in the county run below the national picture. Few adults here hold a four-year degree, and the drive to work is a fairly long one for a town this size. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and a good deal of snow, while July brings warm summer days and the year sees a steady amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. People in Alexander work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, and in shops, with some still working in farming and forestry. Across Franklin County, the largest workplaces include Sukup Sheffield Manufacturing Facility, which makes crop driers, Hampton-Dumont Comm School District, and Franklin General Hospital. Unemployment in the county is a little higher than a year ago, and there are somewhat fewer jobs in the county than the year before.
Things to do. For a day out, Clear Lake is a lake a longer drive away, and Beeds Lake State Park is a protected area of similar distance. The Quasdorf Blacksmith and Wagon Shop, one of the closer-to-best-known stops on the list, is a museum also a longer drive away. McIntosh Woods State Park is another park reached the same way.
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- 14%of adults have a degree
- 28 mintypical commute
What people in Franklin County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Franklin County had 3,877 jobs in 2025, 2.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 26° and lows near 6°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 62°. About 31 inches of snow and 34 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Clarion weather station, 14 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Franklin County
- Sukup Sheffield Manufacturing FacilityCrop driers manufacturing629
- Hampton-Dumont Comm School DistrictSchool district183FTE
- Buresh Building SystemsGrain elevator construction112
- Rehab Center of HamptonSkilled nursing facilities96
- Franklin General HospitalCritical access hospital86FTE
- Land O LakesPesticides manufacturing75
- Fareway Stores, Inc. 902 HamptonGrocery stores71
- Iowa Falls Truck WashHog and pig farming46
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 17 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,482 people in all across the county; Alexander has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- DroughtVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Alexander’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Franklin County.
Alexander home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Alexander$179,595
- Iowa$236,623
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Zip codes with a Alexander address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Alexander — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.