Ringsted, Iowa.
Typical home $182,171 (+19.3% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$318 (+50%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $29,453 +19%
- $152,717$182,171 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.
- Ringsted$956
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Ringsted, IA rose 19.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ringsted, Emmet County, Iowa
Ringsted is a city of 365 people in Emmet County. 76% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 24% are rented. Unemployment in Emmet County was 3.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in manufacturing, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ringsted is a very small city in Emmet County, in northwest Iowa, where most homes are lived in by their owners and typical home values are modest. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow are spread through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, shops, transport and warehousing, and in schools, hospitals and social care. Across Emmet County, some of the largest workplaces are Iowa Lakes Community College, Avera Holy Family Health and Estherville Foods. Fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many places, and most people commute a fair distance to their jobs.
Things to do. The area is dotted with lakes and creeks, and all of these are a longer drive away. Okamanpeedan Lake and Fox Lake offer time on the water, while Fort Defiance State Park is a protected area for walking and picnics. Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge is another protected area, suited to watching birds and other wildlife.
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- 177households
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 24 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Emmet County had 3,306 jobs in 2025, 0.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 24° and lows near 5°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 60°. About 32 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Estherville 4E weather station, 14 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Emmet County
- Iowa Lakes Community CollegeTwo-year college352
- Estherville Lincoln Central Com Sch Dist SchoolsSchool district197FTE
- Avera Holy Family HealthCritical access hospital153FTE
- Redwood Farms Meat ProcessorsBoxed meats produced in slaughtering plants143
- Estherville FoodsEggs, processed, manufacturing117
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores91
- moveero, Inc. - ArmstrongTractors and attachments, farm-type, manufacturing87
- moveero, Inc. - EsthervilleHarvesting machinery and equipment, agriculture, manufacturing81
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 941 people in all across the county; Ringsted 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ringsted’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 Emmet County.
Ringsted home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ringsted$182,171
- 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 Ringsted address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ringsted — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.