Manilla, Iowa.
Typical home $173,619 (+12.7% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$572 (+168%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,588 +13%
- $154,031$173,619 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $66,429 +62%
- $107,190$173,619 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.
- Manilla$911
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 7 years.
Typical home values in Manilla, IA rose 12.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Manilla, Crawford County, Iowa
Manilla is a city of 775 people in Crawford County. Half its households earn more than $65,156 a year and half less, against $67,027 across Crawford County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 87% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 13% are rented. Unemployment in Crawford County was 4.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Manilla is a small Iowa city in Crawford County, with a population that fits easily in a few streets. Nearly all homes are lived in by their owners, a much higher share of owner-occupiers than is typical across the country, and typical home values sit at a level that many buyers would find modest. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold and snowy, and summers are warm.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in wholesale. Across Crawford County, some of the largest workplaces are Smithfield, which runs a pork slaughtering and processing operation, Monogram Quality Foods, which makes sausages and other prepared meats, and the Denison school district. The typical trip to work is short, and few people work from home. Jobs across the county dipped slightly last year, and unemployment there is close to where it stood a year earlier.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Prairie Rose State Park is a state park a longer drive away, and Black Hawk State Park is a protected area, also a longer drive away. Swan Lake is a lake in the same longer-drive range, a place for water and walking. The Museum of Danish America, also a longer drive away, is a museum for a rainy or snowy day.
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- 242households
- 10%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Crawford County had 6,449 jobs in 2025, 1.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 27° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 63°. About 34 inches of snow and 34 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Denison weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Crawford County
- SmithfieldPork carcasses, half carcasses, and primal and sub-primal cuts produced in slaughtering plants1,042
- Monogram Quality FoodsSausages and other prepared meat products314
- Denison Comm School DistrictSchool district303FTE
- Crawford County Memorial HospitalPhysicians' offices247
- Crawford County Memorial HospitalCritical access hospital168FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters161
- WESCO IndustriesGroup homes, intellectual and developmental disability148
- Eventide Lutheran HomeNursing homes124
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 22 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,791 people in all across the county; Manilla has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- TornadoesVery high
- Strong windVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Manilla’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 Crawford County.
Manilla home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Manilla$173,619
- 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 Manilla address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Manilla — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Manilla
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 51455 | Manning | 2,279 | — | $194,826 |
| 51454 | Manilla | 1,254 | — | $166,898 |