Peru, Nebraska.
Typical home $158,503 (+13.8% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$464 (+126%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,185 +14%
- $139,318$158,503 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $36,864 +30%
- $121,640$158,503 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.
- Peru$832
- Nebraska$1,461
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Peru, NE rose 13.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Peru, Nemaha County, Nebraska
Peru is a city of 648 people in Nemaha County. Unemployment in Nemaha County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 2.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Nemaha County work in schools and health care, then transport and warehouses.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Peru is a small city in Nemaha County, Nebraska, and a very young one by age: its residents are far younger than in most American towns, which fits a place built around a college campus. Homes are modestly priced, and household incomes across the county sit a little below what many families earn elsewhere. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and a good deal of snow, while July brings warm summer days.
Work. Residents most often work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by transport, warehouses and utilities, then manufacturing and shops. Across Nemaha County, the largest workplaces include Peru State College, Auburn Public Schools and Nemaha County Hospital. Commutes are short, and unemployment across the county is low and has barely changed over the past year, though the county has lost a few jobs.
Things to do. A short drive away, Auburn has the New Opera House, a theatre, and the Governor Furnas Arboretum is a botanical garden. For a longer outing, Indian Cave State Park is a protected area set along the Missouri River bluffs, and it makes a good day out for walking and picnics.
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- 14 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What people in Nemaha County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Nemaha County had 2,905 jobs in 2025, 2.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 67°. About 30 inches of snow and 32 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Auburn Ese weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Nemaha County
- Peru State CollegeUniversity or college225
- Auburn Public SchoolsSchool district144FTE
- FAST Global SolutionsIndustrial truck, tractor, trailer, and stacker machinery manufacturing85
- Nemaha County HospitalCritical access hospital84FTE
- Magnolia MetalMachine shops61
- Johnson-brock Public SchoolsSchool district56FTE
- Compass Group55
- SpartanNashSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores35
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 264 people in all across the county; Peru has none of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts 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
- HailVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Peru’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 Nemaha County.
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$158,503
- Nebraska$278,299
- 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 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.