Kelley, Iowa.
Typical home $344,304 (+5.0% in a year). Ames, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,027 (+132%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,479 +5%
- $327,825$344,304 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $91,811 +36%
- $252,494$344,304 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.
- Kelley$1,807
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Kelley, IA rose 5.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Kelley, Story County, Iowa
Kelley is a city of 304 people in Story County. Unemployment in Story County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Story County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Kelley is a very small Iowa city in Story County, with a population well below that of most towns people think of as small. Homes here are valued higher than many in the area might lead you to expect, and household incomes across the county are modest by comparison with the value of a typical house. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers turn warm in July, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Across Story County, unemployment is low and unchanged from a year earlier, though the county had slightly fewer jobs last year than the year before. Residents of Kelley work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, restaurants and hotels, and manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces across the county are Mary Greeley Medical Center, the Ames Comm School District and Hormel Foods. Commutes are fairly short, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away is Reiman Gardens, a botanical garden, along with Jack Trice Stadium, a stadium for watching a game. The High Trestle Trail, a protected area, is also a short drive off. For a longer outing, the Des Moines Art Center is a museum a longer drive away.
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- 22 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What people in Story County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Story County had 47,004 jobs in 2025, 1.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 11°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 63°. About 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Ames Municipal Airport weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Story County
- Mary Greeley Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,084FTE
- Ames Comm School DistrictSchool district602FTE
- Hormel FoodsProcessed meats manufacturing561
- City of Ames, IowaBus transit systems464
- McFarland ClinicPhysicians' offices463
- New Century FSAgricultural chemicals merchant wholesalers441
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters385
- 3M Company378
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 125 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 13,395 people in all across the county; Kelley 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 weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Kelley’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Story County and the Ames, IA metro.
Kelley home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Kelley$344,304
- 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 Kelley address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Kelley — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.