McDonald, Kansas.
Typical home $103,742 (+6.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$297 (+120%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,429 +7%
- $97,313$103,742 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $21,539 +26%
- $82,203$103,742 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.
- McDonald$545
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in McDonald, KS rose 6.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in McDonald, Rawlins County, Kansas
McDonald is a city of 113 people in Rawlins County. Half its households earn more than $90,764 a year and half less, against $67,742 across Rawlins County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Rawlins County was 3.4% in August 2026, and the county had 1.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Rawlins County work in farming, then schools and health care.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. McDonald is a small city in Rawlins County in northwestern Kansas, where median household incomes are higher than across the county. Winters are cold and snowy, and summers are hot, with the coldest weather in January and the warmest in July.
Work. Residents work in farming, forestry and mining, in schools, hospitals and social care, in local shops, and in manufacturing. Across Rawlins County, unemployment has stayed low, though the number of jobs fell slightly in the most recent year.
Things to do. The South Fork Republican River, a river, and Howard T. Sawhill City Park, a park, are both a longer drive away. Shirley Opera House, a theatre, is also a longer drive away and is one of the places to see when visiting the area.
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- 12%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
What people in Rawlins County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Rawlins County had 992 jobs in 2025, 1.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 42° and lows near 17°; warmest in July, with highs near 91° and lows near 62°. About 34 inches of snow and 21 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Mc Donald weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Rawlins County
- SurePoint Ag SystemsPlanting machinery and equipment, farm-type, merchant wholesalers106
- Rawlins County SchoolsSchool district76FTE
- Rawlins County Health CenterCritical access hospital64FTE
- Beaver Valley Supply CoAgricultural machinery and equipment merchant wholesalers43
- SurePoint ElectronicsHarness assemblies for electronic use manufacturing31
- Vap ConstructionPost framing contractors26
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 282 people in all across the county; McDonald 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
- HailVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- LightningVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in McDonald’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 Rawlins County.
McDonald home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- McDonald$103,742
- Kansas$246,055
- 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 McDonald address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls McDonald — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.