Ely, Iowa.
Typical home $372,039 (+4.4% in a year). Cedar Rapids, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,012 (+107%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,613 +4%
- $356,426$372,039 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $81,098 +28%
- $290,942$372,039 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.
- Ely$1,953
- 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 Ely, IA rose 4.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ely, Linn County, Iowa
Ely is a city of 2,328 people in Linn County. Half its households earn more than $105,882 a year and half less, against $77,649 across Linn County; 2% of its people live below the poverty line. 82% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 18% are rented. Unemployment in Linn County was 4.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then construction.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ely is a small city in Linn County where most homes are lived in by their owners, at a much higher rate than is typical for the country. Household incomes run well above the county's, and very few residents live below the poverty line. The typical home here costs more than most, and a good share of adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with many others in the building trades, manufacturing and shops. Across Linn County, some of the largest workplaces are Mercy Medical Center, the Cedar Rapids Comm School District and St. Lukes Methodist Hospital. The typical commute is a moderate one, and only a small share of people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away, Palisades-Kepler State Park and Lake Macbride State Park offer wooded park land for walking and time outdoors. The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library is also a short drive off, and the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is a longer drive. Winters are cold and snowy, and summers are warm.
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- 826households
- 38%of adults have a degree
- 2%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Linn County had 125,508 jobs in 2025, 0.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 28° and lows near 11°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 63°. About 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cedar Rapids Municipal Airport weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Linn County
- Mercy Medical CenterMedical doctors' offices2,692
- Cedar Rapids Comm School DistrictSchool district2,448FTE
- St. Lukes Methodist HospitalGeneral hospital1,897FTE
- Linn-Mar Comm School DistrictSchool district1,161FTE
- College Comm School DistrictSchool district927FTE
- Frito LAYBreakfast cereal manufacturing885
- BAE SystemsSearch and detection systems and instruments manufacturing814
- FedExCourier and express delivery services626
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 380 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 38,500 people in all across the county; Ely 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
- HailRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ely’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 Linn County and the Cedar Rapids, IA metro.
Ely home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ely$372,039
- Iowa$236,623
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
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.
- Ely9
Zip codes with a Ely address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ely — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.