Joice, Iowa.
Typical home $191,730 (+3.7% in a year). Mason City, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$537 (+115%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,880 +4%
- $184,850$191,730 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $41,696 +28%
- $150,034$191,730 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.
- Joice$1,006
- 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 Joice, IA rose 3.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Joice, Worth County, Iowa
Joice is a city of 208 people in Worth County. Unemployment in Worth County was 2.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Worth County work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Joice is a very small Iowa city in Worth County, with far fewer residents than most towns people think of as small. Most people here work in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, or in farming, with shops employing some as well. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and freezing lows, and summers are warm in July, with rain and melted snow adding up to a moderate amount over the year.
Work. Across Worth County, some of the largest workplaces are Boyd Gaming, Trustile Doors in Northwood, and Northwood Foods. Unemployment in the county is low and about the same as a year ago, though the county had slightly fewer jobs last year than the year before. Fewer adults here hold a four-year degree than is typical, and the usual trip to work is a fairly short one.
Things to do. Rice Lake State Park is a protected area in or beside town, and Pilot Knob State Park is another a short drive away. Lime Creek, a river, is also a short drive from town. For a day out, Clear Lake is a lake a longer drive away.
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- 17%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What people in Worth County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Worth County had 2,284 jobs in 2025, 0.8% 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 62°. About 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Forest City Nne weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Worth County
- Boyd GamingCasino371
- Trustile Doors - NorthwoodWood window and door manufacturing226
- Northwood FoodsMeat products canning made from purchased carcasses180
- Central Springs Comm School DistrictSchool district125FTE
- Northwood-Kensett Comm School DistrictSchool district82FTE
- Care Initiatives55
- Poet BioprocessingEthanol, nonpotable, manufacturing46
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 878 people in all across the county; Joice 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Joice’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 Worth County and the Mason City, IA metro.
Joice home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Joice$191,730
- 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 Joice address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Joice — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.