Plain, Wisconsin.
Typical home $309,707 (+7.5% in a year). Baraboo, WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$881 (+118%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $21,638 +8%
- $288,069$309,707 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $66,620 +27%
- $243,087$309,707 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.
- Plain$1,626
- Wisconsin$1,770
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Plain, WI rose 7.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Plain, Sauk County, Wisconsin
Plain is a village of 749 people in Sauk County. Half its households earn more than $96,000 a year and half less, against $79,541 across Sauk County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 79% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 21% are rented. Unemployment in Sauk County was 2.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in construction, 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Plain is a small village in Sauk County, home to relatively few people, with a median age a little below what many rural towns see. Households here earn more than the county typically does, and a smaller share live below the poverty line than you might expect. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and the typical home value is well above what many rural Wisconsin communities see. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm summer days, and the year's rain and melted snow add up to a fairly ordinary Midwestern total.
Work. Residents work mainly in the building trades, manufacturing, shops, and in schools, hospitals and social care. Across Sauk County, some of the largest workplaces are Wilderness Resort, Grede and Sauk Prairie Memorial Hospital. Jobs across the county have slipped slightly from a year earlier, and unemployment is a little higher than it was then. Commutes tend to be fairly long, and some residents work from home.
Things to do. Natural Bridge State Park and Tower Hill State Park are both protected areas a short drive away, and Wilson Creek, a small river, is close by as well. A longer drive brings you to Devil's Lake, a well-known lake with a state park around it, and to the Ice Age Trail, which runs through this part of the state.
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- 318households
- 31%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Sauk County had 36,443 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer 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 83° and lows near 61°. About 34 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lone Rock Tri County Airport weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sauk County
- Wilderness ResortAuto courts, lodging846
- GredeIron foundries760
- Cardinal IG0467
- Sauk Prairie Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital465FTE
- Baraboo School DistrictSchool district429FTE
- SeatsSeats for public conveyances, manufacturing414
- Sauk Prairie School DistrictSchool district388FTE
- Reedsburg Area Medical CenterCritical access hospital381FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 94 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 13,774 people in all across the county; Plain has one 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
- HailRelatively moderate
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Sauk County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively 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 Sauk County and the Baraboo, WI metro.
Plain home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Plain$309,707
- Wisconsin$337,196
- 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 Plain address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Plain — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.