Melbourne, Iowa.
Typical home $241,779 (+7.6% in a year). Marshalltown, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$771 (+155%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,048 +8%
- $224,731$241,779 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $78,261 +48%
- $163,518$241,779 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.
- Melbourne$1,269
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Melbourne, IA rose 7.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Melbourne, Marshall County, Iowa
Melbourne is a city of 786 people in Marshall County. Half its households earn more than $71,667 a year and half less, against $73,315 across Marshall County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 76% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 24% are rented. 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 residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Melbourne is a very small city in Marshall County, Iowa, where most homes are lived in by their owners, a larger share than is typical across the country. Household incomes sit a little below the county's, and typical home values are modest. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers turn warm in July, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, transport, warehouses and utilities, and professional and business services. Across Marshall County, the largest workplaces include Swift Pork Company Marshalltown, Lennox Residential Marshalltown and the Marshalltown Community School District. Few people work from home, and the typical commute is fairly long, and unemployment across the county is no different from a year ago.
Things to do. The best-known places nearby are Iowa Speedway, a race track, and Adventureland, an amusement park, both a longer drive away. Rock Creek State Park, a protected area, is also a longer drive away and suits a day outdoors. Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, another protected area, is reached by a similarly longer drive.
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- 324households
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents 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 27° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 63°. About 31 inches of snow and 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Colo 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; Melbourne 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 Melbourne’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.
Melbourne home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Melbourne$241,779
- 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 Melbourne address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Melbourne — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.