Jefferson, South Dakota.
Typical home $394,737 (+3.8% in a year). Sioux City, IA-NE-SD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,047 (+102%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $14,405 +4%
- $380,332$394,737 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $76,393 +24%
- $318,344$394,737 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.
- Jefferson$2,072
- South Dakota$1,668
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Jefferson, SD rose 3.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Jefferson, Union County, South Dakota
Jefferson is a city of 475 people in Union County. Half its households earn more than $82,888 a year and half less, against $89,636 across Union County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 91% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 9% are rented. Unemployment in Union County was 2.6% in August 2026, and the county had 0.7% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Union 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Jefferson is a very small city in the southeastern corner of South Dakota, where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and few residents live below the poverty line. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers turn warm in July, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow across the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops and the building trades. A smaller share of adults hold a four-year degree than in many towns, and most people travel some distance to their jobs, with only a few working from home. Across Union County, some of the largest workplaces are Lunchtime Solutions, FIMCO Plants and Makers Pride North Sioux City.
Things to do. Stone State Park and Ponca State Park are both protected areas a short drive away, and the Big Sioux River is close by as well. McCook Lake, also a short drive off, is a place to spend time by the water. For a museum, the National Music Museum is a longer drive away.
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- 23%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What people in Union County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Union County had 9,566 jobs in 2025, 0.7% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 9°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 63°. About 30 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Sioux City Ang weather station, 17 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Union County
- Lunchtime SolutionsCafeteria food services contractors616
- FIMCO PlantsSprayers and dusters, farm-type, manufacturing373
- Makers Pride North Sioux CityBakery products, dry, manufacturing300
- Thermo Bond BuildingsPrefabricated wood buildings manufacturing268
- Riverside TechnologiesComputer peripheral equipment merchant wholesalers202
- Siouxland Surgery CenterGeneral hospital193FTE
- Dakota Valley School District 61-8School district179FTE
- empirical technology, inc. - Corporate OfficeCorporate offices119
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 21 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,838 people in all across the county; Jefferson has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Jefferson’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 Union County and the Sioux City, IA-NE-SD metro.
Jefferson home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Jefferson$394,737
- 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.
- Jefferson8
Zip codes with a Jefferson address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Jefferson — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.