Orchard, Iowa.
Typical home $364,376 (+4.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,115 (+140%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,357 +4%
- $349,018$364,376 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $103,996 +40%
- $260,380$364,376 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.
- Orchard$1,913
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Orchard, IA rose 4.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Orchard, Mitchell County, Iowa
Orchard is a city of 68 people in Mitchell County. Unemployment in Mitchell County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Mitchell County work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Orchard is a very small city in Mitchell County, in north-central Iowa, where neighbours tend to know one another. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July is the warmest and the rain falls fairly steadily through the year. Homes here are valued well above the typical figure for the county, and the town's own incomes sit below the county's.
Work. Many residents work in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in farming, forestry and mining, or in local shops. Across the surrounding county, joblessness has risen a little over the past year, and the number of jobs has dipped slightly. Fewer people here work from home than in many parts of the country.
Things to do. Lake Louise State Park is a protected area a longer drive away, suited to those who enjoy time outdoors. East Park, a garden, and the MacNider Art Museum, also a longer drive away, offer quieter afternoons for those who like gardens and art.
Report a mistake
- 5%work from home
What people in Mitchell County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Mitchell County had 3,871 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 23° and lows near 6°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 62°. About 40 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Osage weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Mitchell County
- Grain MillersOats, rolled, manufacturing220
- Mitchell County Regional Health CenterFamily physicians' offices213
- A to Z DryingInsecticides manufacturing145
- Mitchell County Regional Health CentCritical access hospital143FTE
- Osage Comm School DistrictSchool district139FTE
- OsageAll printing operations including digital printing120
- Valent Biosciences OsagePesticides manufacturing116
- Mitchell CountyGovernment national mortgage association107
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 13 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,149 people in all across the county; Orchard 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
- TornadoesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Orchard’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 Mitchell County.
Orchard home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Orchard$364,376
- 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 Orchard address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Orchard — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.