Hayti, South Dakota.
Typical home $320,437 (+7.3% in a year). Watertown, SD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$146 (+9%) since Nov 2023.
- 1 year
- Up $21,927 +7%
- $298,509$320,437 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.
- Hayti$1,682
- South Dakota$1,668
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Hayti, SD rose 7.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Hayti, Hamlin County, South Dakota
Hayti is a town of 393 people in Hamlin County. Half its households earn more than $83,750 a year and half less, against $87,101 across Hamlin County; 2% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Hamlin County was 1.5% in August 2026, and the county had 2.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Hamlin 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Hayti is a small town in Hamlin County, in the farm country of eastern South Dakota. It is home to very few people, and the place has the quiet, close-knit feel of a small prairie town. Incomes run a little below the county's, very few households live below the poverty line, and homes here are valued well above what many people would expect for a town this size. Winters are cold and summers are warm, with moisture coming as a mix of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in manufacturing, farming and the building trades. Across Hamlin County, some of the largest workplaces are Agropur Lake Norden, a cheese maker, the Hamlin School District and Legacy Healthcare, which runs nursing homes. Unemployment is low and has held steady over the past year, and the county has added jobs. Commutes are short, and few people work from home.
Things to do. Water is the main draw here. Lake Marsh sits in or beside town, and Lake Mary, Clear Lake and Lake Albert are all a short drive away for fishing, boating or a walk along the shore. Stray Horse Creek, also a short drive away, offers a quieter stretch of river.
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- 18%of adults have a degree
- 2%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What people in Hamlin County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Hamlin County had 2,703 jobs in 2025, 2.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 22° and lows near 2°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 58°. About 24 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Castlewood #2 weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Hamlin County
- Agropur Lake NordenCheese manufacturing440
- Hamlin School District 28-3School district104FTE
- Legacy HealthcareNursing homes71
- Hamlin Building CenterLumber retailing yards70
- Efraimson Electric Inc BryantLow voltage electrical work57
- RiverviewDairy cattle farming52
- GarfieldDairy cattle farming51
- JR DistributingAnimal feeds, prepared, manufacturing49
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 9 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 867 people in all across the county; Hayti has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Hayti’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 Hamlin County and the Watertown, SD metro.
Hayti home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Hayti$320,437
- South Dakota$317,874
- 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.
- Hayti7
Zip codes with a Hayti address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Hayti — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.