Calmar, Iowa.
Typical home $205,145 (+3.3% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$574 (+114%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,632 +3%
- $198,513$205,145 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $43,447 +27%
- $161,698$205,145 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.
- Calmar$1,077
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Calmar, IA rose 3.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Calmar, Winneshiek County, Iowa
Calmar is a city of 1,125 people in Winneshiek County. 73% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 27% are rented. Unemployment in Winneshiek County was 2.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Calmar is a small city in Winneshiek County where most homes are lived in by their owners, a higher share than is typical across the country. Typical home values sit at a modest level, and a four-year degree is held by a smaller share of adults than in many places. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and a good deal of snow, while July brings warm summer days, and rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in shops and in the building trades. Across Winneshiek County, some of the largest workplaces are Northeast Iowa Community College, Luther College and Winneshiek Medical Center. Unemployment across the county is low and little changed from a year ago, and the commute is a short one for most people, with only a few working from home.
Things to do. Several places are a short drive away, including Fort Atkinson, a historic fort, and the Bily Clock Museum, a museum. The Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum is also a short drive away, and for time outdoors, the Turkey River is a longer drive away.
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- 394households
- 26%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Winneshiek County had 10,515 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 28° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 63°. About 38 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Decorah weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Winneshiek County
- Northeast Iowa Community CollegeTwo-year college664
- Luther CollegeUniversity or college454
- Winneshiek Medical CenterCritical access hospital428FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters297
- Stanley Engineered FasteningBolts, metal, manufacturing270
- Decorah Community School DistrictSchool district255FTE
- Reilly Construction CoConstruction management, mass transit208
- Iowa Rotocast PlasticsCoolers or ice chests, plastics, manufacturing204
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 25 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,544 people in all across the county; Calmar has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals 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
- HailRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Calmar’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 Winneshiek County.
Calmar home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Calmar$205,145
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Calmar6
Zip codes with a Calmar address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Calmar — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.