Elma, Iowa.
Typical home $222,541 (+10.7% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$553 (+90%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $21,591 +11%
- $200,949$222,541 since Sep 2025
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.
- Elma$1,168
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Elma, IA rose 10.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Elma, Howard County, Iowa
Elma is a city of 505 people in Howard County. Unemployment in Howard County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Howard County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Elma is a small city in Howard County, Iowa, with a population well under the size of most American towns. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and a good deal of snow, while summers are warm in July. Housing costs run modest, and relatively few adults hold a four-year degree. Incomes in the county are on the lower side of the national picture, and a notable portion of residents live below the poverty line.
Work. Residents of Elma work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops and farming. Across Howard County, some of the largest workplaces are Featherlite Trailers, Upper Iowa Beef and the Howard-Winneshiek Community School District. Very few people work from home, and the county has seen a slight dip in the number of jobs over the past year, with unemployment holding close to where it was a year earlier.
Things to do. The Turkey River is a short drive away and a natural spot for time along the water. A longer drive brings you to Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park, a protected area with caves and woodland, and to Fort Atkinson, a historic fort. Each makes a fair day out from town.
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- 295households
- 10%of adults have a degree
- 19%below the poverty line
- 2%work from home
What people in Howard County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Howard County had 4,358 jobs in 2025, 1.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 23° and lows near 6°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 60°. About 38 inches of snow and 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the New Hampton weather station, 15 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Howard County
- Featherlite TrailersHorse trailers manufacturing321
- Upper Iowa BeefBoxed beef produced in slaughtering plants307
- Donaldson CompanyAir filters, automotive, truck, and bus, manufacturing251
- Howard-Winneshiek Comm School DistrictSchool district176FTE
- Regional Health Services of Howard CCritical access hospital157FTE
- VocationalManufacturing plant146
- Evans Memorial HomeSkilled nursing facilities95
- Fareway Stores, Inc. 815 CrescoGrocery stores90
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,600 people in all across the county; Elma has one 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
- Strong windVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Elma’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 Howard County.
Elma home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Elma$222,541
- 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 Elma address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Elma — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.