Center, Missouri.
Typical home $232,672 (+8.2% in a year). Hannibal, MO metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$758 (+164%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,586 +8%
- $215,086$232,672 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $78,707 +51%
- $153,965$232,672 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.
- Center$1,221
- Missouri$1,393
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 8 years.
Typical home values in Center, MO rose 8.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Center, Ralls County, Missouri
Center is a city of 528 people in Ralls County. Half its households earn more than $59,375 a year and half less, against $65,388 across Ralls County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 83% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 17% are rented. Unemployment in Ralls County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Center is a very small city in Ralls County, Missouri, where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Household incomes run below the county's, and a somewhat larger share of people live below the poverty line than is typical for a place with such settled homeownership. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and very few work from home.
Work. Most residents work in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Ralls County, the largest workplaces include the Ralls County R-II Schools, Perry Machine & Die, and the Ralls County Electric Cooperative. Unemployment in the county is lower than it was a year ago, and the number of jobs has edged up slightly.
Things to do. Winters in Center are cold and summers are warm, with rain and melted snow spread through the year, so a season for outdoor time is easy to find. A short drive brings several small streams, including Straight Branch, Dry Fork and Ely Creek. A longer drive reaches Mark Twain State Park, the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, and Mark Twain Cave, a tourist attraction.
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- 9%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 3%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Ralls County had 3,607 jobs in 2025, 0.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 36° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 66°. About 42 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Monroe City weather station, 14 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ralls County
- Ralls Co. R-II SchoolsSchool district117FTE
- Perry Machine & DieUtility containers, plastics, manufacturing89
- Ralls County Electric CooperativeElectric power distribution systems30
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 119 people in all across the county; Center has none of its own. School districts come 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
- Heat wavesVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Center’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 Ralls County and the Hannibal, MO metro.
Center home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Center$232,672
- Missouri$265,387
- 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 Center address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Center — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.