Algona, Iowa.
Typical home $185,689 (+1.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$471 (+94%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,577 +1%
- $183,112$185,689 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $28,388 +18%
- $157,301$185,689 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.
- Algona$975
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 21 years.
Typical home values in Algona, IA rose 1.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Algona, Kossuth County, Iowa
Algona is a city of 5,487 people in Kossuth County. Half its households earn more than $56,040 a year and half less, against $67,697 across Kossuth County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 69% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 31% are rented. Unemployment in Kossuth County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Algona is a small city and the seat of Kossuth County, with most homes lived in by their owners. Incomes run below the county's as a whole, and the typical home value sits at a level many longtime homeowners will find modest. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm summer days, and moisture falls fairly evenly across the year as rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in banks, insurance and property, and in restaurants and hotels. The largest workplaces in Algona include Hormel Food, a processed meats manufacturer, the Algona Comm School District, and the Hy-Vee grocery store. Commutes are short, and very few people work from home. Across the county, jobs have slipped a little over the past year.
Things to do. Ambrose A. Call State Park is a protected area in or beside town, an easy place for a walk outdoors. A longer drive away are Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area, and Plum Creek, a river, both reachable on a day out from town.
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- 2,552households
- 26%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 11 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kossuth County had 6,481 jobs in 2025, 1.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 25° and lows near 6°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 61°. About 34 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Algona weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Algona
- Hormel FoodProcessed meats manufacturing282
- Algona Comm School DistrictSchool district226FTE
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores146
- IA,Algona-GSS Algona Center-Nursing Care Facilities (Skilled Nursing Facilities)Nursing homes104
- Exceptional OpportunitiesGroup homes, intellectual and developmental disability96
- Fareway Stores, Inc. 531 AlgonaGrocery stores64
- Algona Manor Care CenterNursing homes54
- Reding's Gravel & Excavating CoExcavation contractors46
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 876 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Algona’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Kossuth County.
Algona home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Algona$185,689
- Iowa$236,623
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 7 Algona listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Algona14.79%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Algona60
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Algona14
Zip codes with a Algona address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Algona — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.