Beacon, Iowa.
Typical home $135,890 (+12.2% in a year). Oskaloosa, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$325 (+84%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $14,801 +12%
- $121,089$135,890 since Sep 2025
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.
- Beacon$713
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Beacon, IA rose 12.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Beacon, Mahaska County, Iowa
Beacon is a city of 445 people in Mahaska County. 87% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 13% are rented. Unemployment in Mahaska County was 2.8% in August 2026, and the county had 2.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Mahaska 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Beacon is a very small Iowa city in Mahaska County, where the people who live here tend to be older than in most places. Nearly everyone owns their home, and typical home values are modest. Poverty is more common here than in most of the country, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, and in shops, with some working in farming, forestry and mining. Very few work from home. Across Mahaska County, the largest workplaces include Mahaska Health Partnership, William Penn University and Clow Valve Company. Unemployment in the county is low, unchanged from a year earlier, and the number of jobs there has grown a little.
Things to do. Lake Keomah State Park, a protected area, is a short drive away. Farther afield, Knoxville Raceway is a race track, and the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum is a museum, each a longer drive away. Elk Rock State Park, another protected area, is also a longer drive away.
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- 8%of adults have a degree
- 20%below the poverty line
- 4%work from home
What people in Mahaska County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Mahaska County had 8,096 jobs in 2025, 2.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 65°. About 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Oskaloosa weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Mahaska County
- Corporate Office585
- Mahaska Health PartnershipCritical access hospital483FTE
- Clow Valve Company - Machine ShopAngle valves, industrial-type, manufacturing395
- William Penn UniversityUniversity or college376
- Oskaloosa Comm School DistrictSchool district307FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters252
- Clow Valve Company - Metal Casting FacilityFoundries, iron161
- Pioneer Hi-Bred InternationalSeed processing, post-harvest for propagation121
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 25 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,195 people in all across the county; Beacon has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Beacon’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 Mahaska County and the Oskaloosa, IA metro.
Beacon home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Beacon$135,890
- 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 Beacon address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Beacon — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.