Carson, Iowa.
Typical home $257,707 (+3.5% in a year). Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$765 (+130%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,712 +3%
- $248,995$257,707 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $68,709 +36%
- $188,997$257,707 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.
- Carson$1,353
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Carson, IA rose 3.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Carson, Pottawattamie County, Iowa
Carson is a city of 766 people in Pottawattamie County. Half its households earn more than $73,403 a year and half less, against $73,602 across Pottawattamie County; 8% of its people live below the poverty line. 83% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 17% are rented. Unemployment in Pottawattamie County was 3.9% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then construction.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Carson is a small city in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, where almost everyone owns the home they live in. Incomes sit close to the county's, and a smaller share of adults hold a four-year degree than in many places. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm summer days and the year is fairly wet.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, the building trades, manufacturing, and banks, insurance and property. Across Pottawattamie County, some of the largest workplaces are Tyson Fresh Meats, the Council Bluffs Community School District and Iowa Western Community College. The typical commute is a fairly long one, and few people work from home.
Things to do. For a day out, Lake Manawa is a lake a longer drive away, and Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium is one of the best known zoos around, also a longer drive away. The Joslyn Art Museum is another museum within a longer drive, and Lauritzen Gardens offers a botanical garden for a quieter outing.
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- 343households
- 24%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 32 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Pottawattamie County had 41,804 jobs in 2025, 1.0% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 64°. About 28 inches of snow and 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Oakland weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Pottawattamie County
- Tyson Fresh MeatsMeat processed from carcasses1,603
- Council Bluffs Comm School DistrictSchool district1,254FTE
- OSI OaklandMeats, cured or smoked, made from purchased carcasses959
- Iowa Western Community CollegeTwo-year college764
- Conagra BrandsFrozen specialty food manufacturing720
- Horseshoe Council Bluffs Captive630
- Jennie Edmundson MemorialGeneral hospital590FTE
- GXO Logistics WorldwideGeneral warehousing and storage420
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 107 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 15,246 people in all across the county; Carson has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), colleges from IPEDS (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
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Carson’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 Pottawattamie County and the Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA metro.
Carson home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Carson$257,707
- 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.
- Carson6
Zip codes with a Carson address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Carson — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.