Onslow, Iowa.
Typical home $211,244 (+7.0% in a year). Cedar Rapids, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$618 (+126%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,900 +7%
- $197,343$211,244 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $48,589 +30%
- $162,655$211,244 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.
- Onslow$1,109
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Onslow, IA rose 7.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Onslow, Jones County, Iowa
Onslow is a city of 201 people in Jones County. Unemployment in Jones County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Jones 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Onslow is a very small Iowa city, one of the smallest places in Jones County, where neighbors tend to know one another. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers turn warm in July, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow. Homes cost less than the typical American home, and household incomes across Jones County sit a little below the national middle.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and the building trades close behind. Across Jones County, the largest workplaces include Jones Regional Medical CTR, the Anamosa and Monticello school districts and Walmart. Relatively few adults hold a four-year degree, and very few work from home, so most people travel to a job, and commutes are longer than in many places.
Things to do. Maquoketa Caves State Park and Wapsipinicon State Park are both protected areas for walking and being outdoors, each a longer drive away. The National Farm Toy Museum is a museum, also a longer drive away. Palisades-Kepler State Park is another park to visit, a longer drive from town.
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- 15%of adults have a degree
- 30 mintypical commute
- 2%work from home
What people in Jones County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Jones County had 6,279 jobs in 2025, 0.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 27° and lows near 11°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 63°. About 31 inches of snow and 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cascade weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Jones County
- Jones Regional Medical CTRCritical access hospital219FTE
- Anamosa Comm School DistrictSchool district176FTE
- Monticello Comm School DistrictSchool district175FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters172
- BoomerangSewer main, pipe and connection, construction158
- ORBIS MonticelloAwnings, rigid plastics or fiberglass, manufacturing132
- NCI GroupBuildings, prefabricated metal, manufacturing131
- Metal Design SystemsSheet metal manufacturing111
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 22 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,712 people in all across the county; Onslow has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Onslow’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Jones County and the Cedar Rapids, IA metro.
Onslow home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Onslow$211,244
- 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 Onslow address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Onslow — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.