Mount Ayr, Iowa.
Typical home $141,950 (+7.8% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$369 (+98%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $10,254 +8%
- $131,696$141,950 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $26,787 +23%
- $115,162$141,950 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.
- Mount Ayr$745
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Mount Ayr, IA rose 7.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Mount Ayr is a city of 1,623 people in Ringgold County. Half its households earn more than $74,167 a year and half less, against $73,346 across Ringgold County; 11% of its people live below the poverty line. 68% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 32% are rented. Unemployment in Ringgold County was 2.6% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then construction.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Mount Ayr is a small city in southern Iowa and the seat of Ringgold County. Most homes here are lived in by their owners, and household incomes run a little above the county's. Winters are cold, with a good deal of snow, and summers turn warm; rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and in the building trades, shops and wholesale. The biggest workplaces in town are the Mount Ayr Comm School District, Clearview Home & Estates, a nursing home, and Hy-Vee, the supermarket. A small share of people work from home, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than hold only a high school diploma or less schooling.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Nine Eagles State Park and Green Valley State Park are protected areas a longer drive away, and Lake of Three Fires State Park is another park at about the same distance. The Grand River, also a longer drive away, is the best known of the rivers and creeks that wind through the countryside around town.
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- 684households
- 25%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Ringgold County had 1,393 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 32° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 64°. About 20 inches of snow and 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Mount Ayr weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Mount Ayr
- Mount Ayr Comm School DistrictSchool district113FTE
- Clearview Home & EstatesNursing homes104
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores37
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 141 people in all. School districts come 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
- Strong windVery high
- Heat wavesVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Mount Ayr’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 Ringgold County.
Mount Ayr home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Mount Ayr$141,950
- Iowa$236,623
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Mount Ayr listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Mount Ayr23.52%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Mount Ayr21
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Mount Ayr address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Mount Ayr — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.