Eldon, Iowa.
Typical home $111,929 (+2.4% in a year). Ottumwa, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$297 (+102%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,649 +2%
- $109,280$111,929 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $24,011 +27%
- $87,918$111,929 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.
- Eldon$587
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Eldon, IA rose 2.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Eldon, Wapello County, Iowa
Eldon is a city of 783 people in Wapello County. Half its households earn more than $47,917 a year and half less, against $64,766 across Wapello County; 21% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Wapello County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Eldon is a very small city, home to far fewer people than most towns of its kind. Household incomes here run well below the county's, and more residents live below the poverty line than is typical. Homes are modest in price, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with a fair amount of snow, and summers turn warm in July.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and banks, insurance and property also employing many. Across Wapello County, the largest workplaces include Swift Pork Company Ottumwa, the Ottumwa Community School District and John Deere Ottumwa Works. The typical commute is fairly long, and few people work from home. Unemployment across the county has eased compared with a year earlier, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. Soap Creek, a river in or beside town, offers a quiet place to walk the banks. The McHaffey Opera House, a theatre, also stands in or beside town. A longer drive brings you to Lake Wapello State Park, a protected area with a lake, and to the International Video Game Hall of Fame, a museum.
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- 327households
- 11%of adults have a degree
- 21%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Wapello County had 15,248 jobs in 2025, 0.9% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 64°. About 22 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Fairfield weather station, 16 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Wapello County
- Swift Pork Company OttumwaPork carcasses, half carcasses, and primal and sub-primal cuts produced in slaughtering plants2,281
- Ottumwa Comm School DistrictSchool district751FTE
- Indian Hills Community CollegeTwo-year college568
- Ottumwa Bacon JBS Prepared FoodsBacon, slab and sliced, produced in slaughtering plants549
- John Deere Ottumwa WorksHaying machines manufacturing513
- Winger Contracting CompanyHeating and cooling duct work installation480
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters373
- Ottumwa Regional Health CenterGeneral hospital299FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 40 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,915 people in all across the county; Eldon has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), colleges from IPEDS (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
- DroughtRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Eldon’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 Wapello County and the Ottumwa, IA metro.
Eldon home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Eldon$111,929
- 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 Eldon address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Eldon — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.