Brayton, Iowa.
Typical home $184,342 (+11.2% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$463 (+92%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $18,516 +11%
- $165,826$184,342 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.
- Brayton$968
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Brayton, IA rose 11.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Brayton, Audubon County, Iowa
Brayton is a city of 143 people in Audubon County. Unemployment in Audubon County was 2.3% in August 2026, and the county had 2.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Audubon 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Brayton is a very small farming town in Audubon County, Iowa, where neighbors are likely to know one another. Homes here are priced below what is typical for the country as a whole, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers turn properly warm by July, and rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and a good number work in farming, the building trades or shops. Across Audubon County, larger workplaces include the Audubon Comm School District, Audubon County Memorial Hospital and Global Precision Parts. Unemployment in the county is low, though there are somewhat fewer jobs than there were a year earlier.
Things to do. The Museum of Danish America is a short drive away and a good place to learn about the region's Danish heritage. For time outdoors, Lake Anita State Park and Springbrook State Park are both a longer drive away, and both are protected areas suited to walking and being near the water and woods.
Report a mistake
- 12%of adults have a degree
What people in Audubon County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Audubon County had 1,797 jobs in 2025, 2.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 64°. About 27 inches of snow and 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Atlantic Northeast weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Audubon County
- Audubon Comm School DistrictSchool district88FTE
- Exira Care Center80
- Audubon County Memorial HospitalCritical access hospital71FTE
- AmvcHog and pig farming69
- Friendship HomeNursing homes54
- Global Precision PartsTubing, mechanical and hypodermic sizes, cold-drawn stainless steel, made from purchased steel43
- AMVC Management ServicesOther animal food manufacturing29
- AMVC Management ServicesHog and pig farming26
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 9 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 444 people in all across the county; Brayton 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
- Strong windVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Brayton’s 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 Audubon County.
Brayton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Brayton$184,342
- 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 Brayton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Brayton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.