Almena, Kansas.
Typical home $97,730 (+3.9% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$234 (+84%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $3,701 +4%
- $94,029$97,730 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $17,413 +22%
- $80,318$97,730 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.
- Almena$513
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Almena, KS rose 3.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Almena, Norton County, Kansas
Almena is a city of 363 people in Norton County. Unemployment in Norton County was 3.4% in August 2026, and the county had 2.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Norton County work in schools and health care, then farming.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Almena is a very small farming-country city in Norton County, in north-central Kansas, where neighbors are likely to know one another. Winters are cold, with a fair amount of snow, and summers turn hot. Homes here cost well below what is typical across much of the country, and household incomes across the county run lower than the national picture.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with farming and manufacturing close behind, and some in local shops. Across Norton County, larger workplaces include New Age Industrial HQ, which makes showcases, shelving and lockers, as well as Norton Community Schools and Norton County Hospital. Unemployment across the county is low and has barely moved over the past year, and the county has added a few more jobs.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Prairie Dog State Park is the best known of the nearby places, a protected area a longer drive away. Harlan County Reservoir and Keith Sebelius Lake are both reservoirs, also a longer drive away, and suit anyone who likes being near open water. Beaver Creek, a river, is another longer drive.
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- 24%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 4%work from home
What people in Norton County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Norton County had 2,328 jobs in 2025, 2.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 42° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 92° and lows near 64°. About 22 inches of snow and 23 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Norton 9SSE weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Norton County
- New Age Industrial HQ337215 showcase, partition, shelving, and locker manufacturing144
- Norton Community SchoolsSchool district109FTE
- Prairie Land Electric CooperativeElectric power distribution systems85
- Natoma ManufacturingPrecision turned product manufacturing81
- Valley Hope AssociationMental health hospitals80
- Norton County HospitalCritical access hospital77FTE
- Northern Valley SchoolsSchool district32FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 439 people in all across the county; Almena has one 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
- HailVery high
- Strong windVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- LightningVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Almena’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Norton County.
Almena home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Almena$97,730
- Kansas$246,055
- 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 Almena address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Almena — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.