Ames, Iowa.
Typical home $301,900 (+2.6% in a year), asking rent $1,240 (+1.7%). Ames, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$742 (+88%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,780 +3%
- $294,120$301,900 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $42,785 +17%
- $259,115$301,900 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.
- Ames$1,585
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 23 years.
Typical home values in Ames, IA rose 2.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Ames, IA rose 1.7% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Ames runs $1,021/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,109 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,261 a month against $1,240 rent: a $1,585 mortgage payment, plus $353 property tax and $323 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Ames
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$2,261
- Renting$1,240
- Mortgage only$1,585
Property tax · $353/mo 1.40% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Story County, IA
Insurance & upkeep · $323/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Ames, Story County, Iowa
Ames is a city of 66,427 people in Story County. Half its households earn more than $60,991 a year and half less, against $69,685 across Story County; 26% of its people live below the poverty line. 42% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 58% are rented. Unemployment in Ames was 2.8% in August 2026, and Story County had 1.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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. Ames is a college town, and it shows in who lives there: residents are far younger than in most American cities, and most homes are rented rather than owned. Incomes run below the county's, which is common where so many residents are students. A large majority of adults hold a four-year degree, and getting to work usually takes only a short drive.
Work. Schools, hospitals and social care employ more residents than anything else, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, shops, and professional and business services. Among the largest workplaces in Ames are Mary Greeley Medical Center, the Ames Community School District and McFarland Clinic. Unemployment has eased a little compared with a year ago, though across Story County there were slightly fewer jobs last year than the year before.
Things to do. In or beside town, Reiman Gardens is a botanical garden, and Jack Trice Stadium is the stadium where the university's football team plays. Bear Creek, a river, is a short drive away, and Ledges State Park, a protected area, is a longer drive away. Winters are cold and summers warm, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
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- 25,785households
- 66%of adults have a degree
- 26%below the poverty line
- 16 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Story County had 47,004 jobs in 2025, 1.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 11°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 63°. About 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Ames Municipal Airport weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ames
- Mary Greeley Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,084FTE
- Ames Comm School DistrictSchool district602FTE
- City of Ames, IowaBus transit systems464
- McFarland ClinicPhysicians' offices463
- New Century FSAgricultural chemicals merchant wholesalers441
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters385
- 3M Company378
- Hach AmesAll other basic organic chemical manufacturing303
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 83 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 9,930 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
- TornadoesVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Hailrelatively high in parts of AmesRelatively moderate
- Strong windrelatively high in parts of AmesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ames’ census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very low. 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 Story County and the Ames, IA metro.
Ames home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ames$301,900
- 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 3 Ames listings, and the typical home goes pending in 24 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Ames29.86%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Ames24
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Ames187
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Ames60
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Ames$320,661
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Ames98.56%
Zip codes with a Ames address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ames — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Ames
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50010 | Ames | 33,799 | $1,251 | $294,371 |
| 50014 | Ames | 32,958 | $1,240 | $312,833 |