States · Iowa · Webster County

Lehigh, Iowa.

Typical home $133,629 (+0.9% in a year). Fort Dodge, IA metro.

What it costs per month · Lehigh $701/mo

to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$345 (+97%) since Jan 2020.

What the home itself did
1 year
Up $1,232 +1%
$132,397$133,629 since Sep 2025
5 years
Up $21,416 +19%
$112,212$133,629 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.

$500 $1,000 $1,500 $2,000 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022 2026 Lehigh $701 Iowa $1,242 United States $1,922
$500 $1,000 $1,500 $2,000 2002 2010 2018 2026
  • Lehigh$701
  • Iowa$1,242
  • United States$1,922

At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.

Typical home values in Lehigh, IA rose 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.

Living in Lehigh, Webster County, Iowa

Lehigh is a city of 395 people in Webster County. Unemployment in Webster County was 3.8% in August 2026, and the county had 1.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Webster County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.

People 395 in the 2020 census
Household income Too few homes in Lehigh for the Census survey to measure.
Unemployment 3.8% Webster County, August 2026; 3.7% a year before
Homes Too few homes in Lehigh for the Census survey to measure.

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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Lehigh is a very small city in Webster County, Iowa, where neighbors are likely to know one another. Homes here cost far less than the national typical, and the town sits within a county whose household incomes are modest. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers turn warm in July.

Work. Residents of Lehigh work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and restaurants and hotels also employing many. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and very few work from home, so most people travel to a job, with a commute of a fairly ordinary length. Across Webster County, the largest workplaces include Iowa Central Community College, Trinity Regional Medical Center and the Fort Dodge Comm School District.

Things to do. Dolliver Memorial State Park is a protected area in or beside town, and the Boone River, Brushy Creek State Recreation Area and Woodman Hollow State Preserve are each a short drive away. These make for walking, fishing and time outdoors close to home. Farther afield, Little Wall Lake and the Oleson Park Music Pavilion are a longer drive away.

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  • 8%of adults have a degree
  • 26 mintypical commute
  • 3%work from home

What people in Webster County work in

  • Schools, hospitals and social care25%
  • Manufacturing16%
  • Shops (retail)11%
  • Restaurants, hotels and entertainment9%
  • Building trades8%
  • Farming, forestry and mining6%

Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Webster County had 17,328 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Weather through the year

Average daily high and low for each month: coldest in January, 26° and 7°; warmest in July, 83° and 61° 0° 20° 40° 60° 80° J 26° 7° F M A M J J 83° 61° A S O N D
Average daily high and low for each month: coldest in January, 26° and 7°; warmest in July, 83° and 61° 0° 20° 40° 60° 80° J 26° 7° F M A M J J 83° 61° A S O N D

Coldest in January, with highs near 26° and lows near 7°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 61°. About 33 inches of snow and 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.

Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Webster City weather station, 15 miles away (NOAA).

Largest workplaces in Webster County

  1. Iowa Central Community CollegeTwo-year college640
  2. Trinity Regional Medical CenterGeneral hospital521FTE
  3. Fort Dodge Comm School DistrictSchool district500FTE
  4. Elanco Fort DodgeVaccines manufacturing462
  5. WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters314
  6. Nestle Purina PetCareAnimal feeds, prepared, dog and cat, manufacturing301
  7. CJ Bio AmericaFeeds, prepared, for animals manufacturing256
  8. Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores256

Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 52 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,616 people in all across the county; Lehigh has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals 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

  1. HailVery high
  2. TornadoesVery high
  3. DroughtRelatively high
  4. Strong windRelatively high
  5. Winter weatherRelatively high
  6. Inland floodingRelatively moderate

FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Lehigh’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 Webster County and the Fort Dodge, IA metro.

Lehigh home values

Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.

$100,000 $200,000 $300,000 2018 2020 2022 2024 2026 Lehigh $133,629 Iowa $236,623 United States $366,157
$100,000 $200,000 $300,000 2018 2022 2026
  • Lehigh$133,629
  • 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.

JFMAMJJASOND
2026
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
falling flat warming hot overheating runaway

Zip codes with a Lehigh address

A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lehigh — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.

Zip codes in Lehigh