Dolliver, Iowa.
Typical home $178,182 (+10.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$497 (+113%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,742 +10%
- $161,440$178,182 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $44,481 +33%
- $133,701$178,182 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.
- Dolliver$935
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Dolliver, IA rose 10.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Dolliver, Emmet County, Iowa
Dolliver is a city of 65 people in Emmet County. Half its households earn more than $90,000 a year and half less, against $63,730 across Emmet County. 98% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 2% are rented. Unemployment in Emmet County was 3.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Emmet County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Dolliver is a small city in Emmet County, in northern Iowa, and it has few residents, so daily life tends to be quiet and close-knit. Most homes are lived in by their owners rather than rented, and home values are more modest than in the larger towns nearby. Winters are colder than in most of the country, and summers are warm, with a good deal of rain and melted snow over the year.
Work. Household incomes in Dolliver are higher than across the county as a whole. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in local shops, or in farming, forestry and mining. Few adults here have a four-year degree, and few people work from home, so most people travel to a workplace each day, usually a short drive away. Across Emmet County, unemployment eased slightly over the past year, and jobs grew a little.
Things to do. Okamanpeedan Lake, a lake a short drive away, is the closest place to spend an afternoon outdoors. For a little more distance, Fort Defiance State Park, a protected area a longer drive away, and the Blue Earth River, also a longer drive, offer other places to walk and spend time outside.
Report a mistake
- 8%of adults have a degree
- 20 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What people in Emmet County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Emmet County had 3,306 jobs in 2025, 0.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 23° and lows near 7°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 60°. About 29 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Estherville Municipal Airport weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Emmet County
- Iowa Lakes Community CollegeTwo-year college352
- Estherville Lincoln Central Com Sch Dist SchoolsSchool district197FTE
- Avera Holy Family HealthCritical access hospital153FTE
- Redwood Farms Meat ProcessorsBoxed meats produced in slaughtering plants143
- Estherville FoodsEggs, processed, manufacturing117
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores91
- moveero, Inc. - ArmstrongTractors and attachments, farm-type, manufacturing87
- moveero, Inc. - EsthervilleHarvesting machinery and equipment, agriculture, manufacturing81
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 941 people in all across the county; Dolliver has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts 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
- DroughtVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Dolliver’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 Emmet County.
Dolliver home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Dolliver$178,182
- 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.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Dolliver address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Dolliver — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.