Cozad, Nebraska.
Typical home $176,117 (+0.6% in a year). Lexington, NE metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$508 (+122%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,105 +1%
- $175,012$176,117 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $37,513 +27%
- $138,604$176,117 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.
- Cozad$924
- Nebraska$1,461
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Cozad, NE rose 0.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Cozad, Dawson County, Nebraska
Cozad is a city of 3,988 people in Dawson County. 65% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 35% are rented. Unemployment in Dawson County was 16.4% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Cozad is a small Nebraska city where most homes are lived in by their owners, and where fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many parts of the country. The commute to work is short, and very few people work from home. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers turn hot in July, with moderate rain and melted snow across the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and transport, warehouses and utilities also employing a good share. Across Dawson County, some of the largest workplaces are Tyson Fresh Meats, Lexington Public Schools and Cozad Community Hospital. Jobs across the county slipped a little last year, and unemployment in the county has risen well above where it stood a year earlier.
Things to do. In or beside town, the Robert Henri Museum and Allen's Opera House, a theatre, are the best known places to visit. A longer drive away are Fort McPherson, a fort, and the Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles, a museum of military vehicles.
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- 1,793households
- 13%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
- 17 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Dawson County had 11,738 jobs in 2025, 1.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 39° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 63°. About 24 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Gothenburg weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Dawson County
- Tyson Fresh MeatsAnimal slaughtering3,202
- Lexington Public SchoolsSchool district490FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters275
- Lexington Regional Health CenterCritical access hospital202FTE
- Cozad Community HospitalCritical access hospital150FTE
- Cozad Community SchoolsSchool district148FTE
- Gothenburg Memorial HospCritical access hospital148FTE
- Fortrex - 0127 Tyson Foods Inc. - LexingtonJanitorial services115
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,245 people in all across the county; Cozad has two of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Strong windVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- HailRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Cozad’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 Dawson County and the Lexington, NE metro.
Cozad home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Cozad$176,117
- Nebraska$278,299
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Cozad listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Cozad19.40%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Cozad28
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Cozad6
Zip codes with a Cozad address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Cozad — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.