Collins, Iowa.
Typical home $270,696 (+5.5% in a year). Ames, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$814 (+134%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $14,077 +5%
- $256,620$270,696 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $75,355 +39%
- $195,341$270,696 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.
- Collins$1,421
- 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 Collins, IA rose 5.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Collins, Story County, Iowa
Collins is a city of 495 people in Story County. Half its households earn more than $67,500 a year and half less, against $69,685 across Story County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Story County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Story County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Collins is a very small city in Story County, Iowa, with a younger population than many towns its size. Household incomes sit a little below the county's, and homes here cost less than in much of the country. Winters are cold, with January highs staying below freezing, and summers are warm, with July the warmest month. A fair amount of snow falls each winter, and rain and melted snow spread through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, restaurants and hotels, and manufacturing. Across Story County, some of the largest workplaces are Mary Greeley Medical Center, the Ames Community School District and Hormel Foods. Relatively few adults hold a four-year degree, and the typical commute is a fairly long one, with few people working from home.
Things to do. For a day out, Reiman Gardens is a botanical garden and Jack Trice Stadium is a stadium, both a longer drive away. The Des Moines Art Center is a museum, also a longer drive away. Adventureland, an amusement park, is another longer drive for a day with the family.
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- 210households
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 29 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What people in Story County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Story County had 47,004 jobs in 2025, 1.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 27° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 63°. About 31 inches of snow and 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Colo weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Story County
- Mary Greeley Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,084FTE
- Ames Comm School DistrictSchool district602FTE
- Hormel FoodsProcessed meats manufacturing561
- City of Ames, IowaBus transit systems464
- McFarland ClinicPhysicians' offices463
- New Century FSAgricultural chemicals merchant wholesalers441
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters385
- 3M Company378
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 125 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 13,395 people in all across the county; Collins has none of its own. Hospitals come 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Collins’ 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 Story County and the Ames, IA metro.
Collins home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Collins$270,696
- 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.
- Collins5
Zip codes with a Collins address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Collins — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.