Melvin, Iowa.
Typical home $128,111 (+3.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$266 (+65%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $4,183 +3%
- $123,928$128,111 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.
- Melvin$672
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Melvin, IA rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Melvin, Osceola County, Iowa
Melvin is a city of 199 people in Osceola County. 91% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 9% are rented. Unemployment in Osceola County was 2.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Osceola County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Melvin is a very small town in Osceola County, in the northwest corner of Iowa. Nearly everyone who lives here owns their home, and few adults have a four-year degree. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers turn warm in July, with a fair amount of rain across the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, farming and the building trades also common. Across Osceola County, some of the largest workplaces are Sonstegrad Foods, the Sibley-Ocheyedan Comm School District and Osceola Regional Health Center. Most people have a fairly short drive to work, and very few work from home.
Things to do. The Iowa Great Lakes are a longer drive away, and West Okoboji Lake is the best known, a lake for boating and time by the water. Gull Point State Park, a protected area on the same side of the county line, is also a longer drive. For a quieter outing, Cayler Prairie State Preserve is a protected area of native prairie, likewise a longer drive.
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- 99households
- 9%of adults have a degree
- 21 mintypical commute
- 1%work from home
What people in Osceola County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Osceola County had 2,641 jobs in 2025, 1.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 24° and lows near 6°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 62°. About 41 inches of snow and 32 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Sanborn weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Osceola County
- Sonstegrad FoodsEgg production, chicken338
- Sibley-Ocheyedan Comm School DistrictSchool district130FTE
- Osceola Regional Health CenterCritical access hospital82FTE
- Care Initiatives55
- Cooperative Farmers ElevatorGrain elevators merchant wholesalers grain53
- POET Bioprocessing - AshtonDenatured alcohol manufacturing44
- Cooperative Energy CompanyConvenience food with gasoline stations43
- Bosma Poultry GroupLivestock trucking, long-distance29
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 759 people in all across the county; Melvin 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Strong windRelatively 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 Melvin’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 Osceola County.
Melvin home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Melvin$128,111
- 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 Melvin address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Melvin — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.