Peru, Iowa.
Typical home $344,167 (+2.5% in a year). Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$766 (+74%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $8,434 +3%
- $335,733$344,167 since Sep 2025
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.
- Peru$1,806
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Peru, IA rose 2.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Peru, Madison County, Iowa
The Census does not count Peru on its own, so the figures here are Madison County's. Half the county's households earn more than $90,855 a year and half less; 7% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 80% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 20% are rented. Unemployment in Madison County was 3.3% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Madison County work in schools and health care, then construction.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Peru is in Madison County, Iowa, where most homes across the county are lived in by their owners. Winterset, the county seat, is close by and is where many residents go for county business and everyday errands. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month and July the warmest, and the county gets a good deal of rain over the year.
Work. Across Madison County, people work most often in schools, hospitals and social care, in the building trades, in banks, insurance and property, and in shops. Unemployment is about the same as it was a year earlier, though the number of jobs dipped a little from the year before. A fair number of residents work from home, and a four-year degree is held by a minority of adults across the county.
Things to do. Winterset City Park is a garden a short drive away, and it suits a slow afternoon. Des Moines Art Center, a museum a longer drive away, is a good choice for a day trip. Living History Farms, also a museum a longer drive away, shows how farming life in this region has changed over time.
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- 6,696households
- 40.6median age
- 27%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 29 mintypical commute
- 17%work from home
What people in Madison County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Madison County had 4,194 jobs in 2025, 1.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°. About 31 inches of snow and 35 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Winterset 1S weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Madison County
- Hy-VeeGeneral warehousing and storage448
- Winterset Comm School DistrictSchool district233FTE
- Agriland FS - WintersetAgricultural chemicals merchant wholesalers200
- Interstate 35 Comm School DistrictSchool district141FTE
- Madison County Memorial HospitalCritical access hospital133FTE
- Van Meter Comm School DistrictSchool district124FTE
- Fareway Stores, Inc. 683 WintersetGrocery stores117
- Earlham Comm School DistrictSchool district99FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,144 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Madison County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very low. 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 Madison County and the Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA metro.
Peru home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Peru$344,167
- 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.
- Peru5
Zip codes with a Peru address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Peru — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.