Conrad, Iowa.
Typical home $179,887 (+2.4% in a year). Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$487 (+106%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,156 +2%
- $175,732$179,887 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $41,080 +30%
- $138,808$179,887 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.
- Conrad$944
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Conrad, IA rose 2.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Conrad, Grundy County, Iowa
Conrad is a city of 1,093 people in Grundy County. Half its households earn more than $73,292 a year and half less, against $87,205 across Grundy County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 72% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 28% are rented. Unemployment in Grundy County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.6% fewer 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Conrad is a small Iowa city in Grundy County, with a population that fits easily into a few quiet streets. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and household incomes run below the county's. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, summers turn warm in July, and the year brings a moderate amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and banks, insurance and property also employing a good share. Among the largest workplaces in Conrad are the BCLUW Comm School District, Ritchie Industries, which makes cattle feeding and watering equipment, and Mid Iowa Cooperative, a grain business. Jobs across the county dipped last year, and unemployment has stayed low and steady.
Things to do. The Matchstick Marvels Museum is a museum a short drive away. Pine Lake State Park, a protected area, is a longer drive away and suits a day outdoors. The UNI-Dome, a stadium, is also a longer drive away.
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- 505households
- 24%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 19 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Grundy County had 4,081 jobs in 2025, 1.6% fewer 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 83° and lows near 62°. About 33 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Marshalltown Municipal Airport weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Conrad
- BCLUW Comm School DistrictSchool district90FTE
- Ritchie IndustriesCattle feeding and watering equipment manufacturing69
- Mid Iowa CooperativeGrain elevators merchant wholesalers grain49
- Packaging Corporation of America48
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 166 people in all. 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Conrad’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 Grundy County and the Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA metro.
Conrad home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Conrad$179,887
- 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 Conrad address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Conrad — 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.