Ames, Oklahoma.
Typical home $170,071 (+13.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$478 (+115%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $20,064 +13%
- $150,007$170,071 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $42,265 +33%
- $127,806$170,071 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$893
- Oklahoma$1,159
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Ames, OK rose 13.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ames, Major County, Oklahoma
Ames is a town of 193 people in Major County. Half its households earn more than $49,231 a year and half less, against $71,266 across Major County. 90% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 10% are rented. Unemployment in Major County was 3.3% in August 2026, and the county had 4.8% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Major 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ames is a very small town in Major County, Oklahoma, where nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Household incomes here run below the county's, and a typical home is valued at a modest sum. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are hot, with July the warmest.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by farming, forestry and mining, then manufacturing and shops. Across Major County, some of the largest workplaces are Fairview Schools, Fairview Hospital and Broce, a maker of road construction and maintenance equipment. Jobs across the county have fallen a little over the past year, while unemployment has held close to where it stood a year earlier. Fewer adults here hold a four-year degree than in many places, and the typical commute is of moderate length.
Things to do. Canton Lake is the best known of the nearby places, a lake a longer drive away. Roman Nose State Park, also a longer drive away, is a protected area for time outdoors. For a rainy day, the Gaslight Theatre is a theatre, again a longer drive away.
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- 16%of adults have a degree
- 26 mintypical commute
What people in Major County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Major County had 2,033 jobs in 2025, 4.8% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 48° and lows near 25°; warmest in July, with highs near 95° and lows near 70°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lahoma 1WSW Mesonet weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Major County
- Fairview SchoolsSchool district106FTE
- Fairview Fellowship HomeNursing homes88
- BroceDrags, road construction and road maintenance equipment, manufacturing60
- Fairview HospitalCritical access hospital55FTE
- Ringwood SchoolsSchool district51FTE
- Harp's Food StoreRetail grocery46
- Okeene Milling CompanyFlour mills, cereals grains27
- Martens Machine ShopMachine shops23
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 6 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 267 people in all across the county; Ames 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
- Ice stormsVery high
- HailVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
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, 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 Major County.
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$170,071
- Oklahoma$220,801
- 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 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.