Laurel, Iowa.
Typical home $262,338 (+19.6% in a year). Marshalltown, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$643 (+88%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $43,002 +20%
- $219,337$262,338 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.
- Laurel$1,377
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Laurel, IA rose 19.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Laurel, Marshall County, Iowa
Laurel is a city of 220 people in Marshall County. Unemployment in Marshall County was 5.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Marshall 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Laurel is a very small Iowa city in Marshall County, the kind of place where residents are likely to know one another by name. Winters are cold, with a good deal of snow, and summers turn warm. Homes here are worth more than many people might guess for a town this size, and relatively few adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in the building trades. Across Marshall County, the largest workplaces include Swift Pork Company Marshalltown, Lennox Residential Marshalltown and the Marshalltown Community School District. Commutes tend to be a little long, and almost no one works from home.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Rock Creek State Park is a protected area a longer drive away, and Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge is another protected area at about the same distance. The Newton Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, also a longer drive away, offers a quieter walk among planted gardens. Iowa Speedway, a race track, is the best known of the nearby places and is likewise a longer drive from town.
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- 141households
- 10%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 1%work from home
What people in Marshall County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Marshall County had 15,942 jobs in 2025, 0.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 28° and lows near 9°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 63°. About 25 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Marshalltown weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Marshall County
- Swift Pork Company MarshalltownPork carcasses, half carcasses, and primal and sub-primal cuts produced in slaughtering plants2,308
- Lennox Residential MarshalltownAir-conditioning and warm air heating combination units manufacturing734
- Marshalltown Comm School DistrictSchool district731FTE
- Fisher Controls InternationalControl valves, industrial-type, manufacturing445
- Veterans Health AdministrationFederal government · Department of Veterans Affairs332
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters325
- Unitypoint Health-marshalltownGeneral hospital260FTE
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores238
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 41 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,777 people in all across the county; Laurel has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026) 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Laurel’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 Marshall County and the Marshalltown, IA metro.
Laurel home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Laurel$262,338
- 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 Laurel address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Laurel — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.