Mount Vernon, South Dakota.
Typical home $285,773 (+1.0% in a year). Mitchell, SD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$850 (+131%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,955 +1%
- $282,818$285,773 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $61,058 +27%
- $224,715$285,773 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 Vernon$1,500
- South Dakota$1,668
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Mount Vernon, SD rose 1.0% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Living in Mount Vernon, Davison County, South Dakota
Mount Vernon is a city of 461 people in Davison County. Unemployment in Davison County was 1.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Davison 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Mount Vernon is a small city in Davison County, South Dakota, and its residents are young, with a median age well below that of much of the country. Incomes across Davison County sit near the middle, and few people in town live below the poverty line. Homes here are worth a good deal more than many small prairie towns would lead you to expect, and winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month and July the warmest, when afternoons turn hot.
Work. Most residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and the building trades close behind. Across Davison County, some of the largest workplaces are Avera Queen of Peace, a critical access hospital, the Mitchell School District, and CC Industries, a truck trailer manufacturer. Unemployment is low and has held steady over the past year, though the county has seen slightly fewer jobs than it did a year earlier. Fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many places, the commute is a short one, and a modest number work from home.
Things to do. Fish Lake is a lake a short drive away, and it is the nearest of the waters around town. A longer drive brings you to Crystal Lake and to the Mitchell Site, an archaeological site and one of the best known places in the area. Winters bring plenty of snow and a fair amount of rain and melted snow over the year, so most outings are easiest in the warmer months.
Report a mistake
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What people in Davison County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Davison County had 12,474 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 9°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 65°. About 41 inches of snow and 26 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Mitchell weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Davison County
- VPS SolutionsEngineering services540
- Avera Queen of PeaceCritical access hospital460FTE
- Mitchell School District 17-2School district390FTE
- CC IndustriesTruck trailer manufacturer341
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters340
- Graphic Packaging InternationalPaper and paperboard206
- Dakota Wesleyan UniversityUniversity or college198
- LifeQuest624310 vocational rehabilitation services190
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 37 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,331 people in all across the county; Mount Vernon has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Winter weatherVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively 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 Mount Vernon’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 Davison County and the Mitchell, SD metro.
Mount Vernon home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Mount Vernon$285,773
- South Dakota$317,874
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Mount Vernon address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Mount Vernon — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.