Ossian, Iowa.
Typical home $277,743 (+7.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$843 (+137%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,562 +8%
- $258,181$277,743 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $82,533 +42%
- $195,210$277,743 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.
- Ossian$1,458
- 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 Ossian, IA rose 7.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ossian, Winneshiek County, Iowa
Ossian is a city of 802 people in Winneshiek County. 80% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 20% are rented. Unemployment in Winneshiek County was 2.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ossian is a small city in Winneshiek County in northeast Iowa, and nearly everyone who lives here owns their home, far more than is typical across the county. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than is usual elsewhere. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers turn warm, and rain and melted snow fall at a steady rate through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in manufacturing, professional and business services, and the building trades. Across Winneshiek County, some of the largest workplaces are Northeast Iowa Community College, Luther College and Winneshiek Medical Center. Few people work from home, and unemployment across the county has stayed low and close to where it stood a year earlier.
Things to do. In or beside town, the Ossian Opera House is a theatre, and Fort Atkinson, an old fort, is only a short drive away. For a longer outing, Effigy Mounds National Monument is an archaeological site, and the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum is a museum, both a longer drive away.
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- 357households
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Winneshiek County had 10,515 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 28° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 63°. About 38 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Decorah weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Winneshiek County
- Northeast Iowa Community CollegeTwo-year college664
- Luther CollegeUniversity or college454
- Winneshiek Medical CenterCritical access hospital428FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters297
- Stanley Engineered FasteningBolts, metal, manufacturing270
- Decorah Community School DistrictSchool district255FTE
- Reilly Construction CoConstruction management, mass transit208
- Iowa Rotocast PlasticsCoolers or ice chests, plastics, manufacturing204
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 25 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,544 people in all across the county; Ossian has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals 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
- TornadoesVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively 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 Ossian’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 Winneshiek County.
Ossian home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ossian$277,743
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Ossian6
Zip codes with a Ossian address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ossian — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.