Rowley, Iowa.
Typical home $254,591 (+7.0% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$774 (+138%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,587 +7%
- $238,004$254,591 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $72,203 +40%
- $182,388$254,591 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.
- Rowley$1,336
- 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 Rowley, IA rose 7.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Rowley, Buchanan County, Iowa
Rowley is a city of 270 people in Buchanan County. Half its households earn more than $60,313 a year and half less, against $78,236 across Buchanan County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 86% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 14% are rented. Unemployment in Buchanan County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 2.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Buchanan County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 24 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Rowley is a very small city in Buchanan County, Iowa, where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Household incomes run below the county's, and a smaller share of adults hold a four-year degree than you might find in larger places. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers turn warm in July, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and the building trades also employing many. Across Buchanan County, the largest workplaces include the Independence Community School District, Walmart and Peoples Memorial Hospital. Unemployment in the county is low, and a good number of residents work from home.
Things to do. Cedar Rock State Park, a short drive away, is the nearest place on the list and is listed as a museum. Backbone State Park is a protected area a longer drive off, good for time outdoors. For an indoor outing, the Museum of Art Cedar Rapids is also a longer drive away.
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- 18%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 13%work from home
What people in Buchanan County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Buchanan County had 6,767 jobs in 2025, 2.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 26° and lows near 8°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 62°. About 34 inches of snow and 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Independence #1 weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Buchanan County
- Independence Comm School DistrictSchool district207FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters198
- Peoples Memorial HospitalCritical access hospital194FTE
- Mental Health InstitutePsychiatric hospital160FTE
- Larson ConstructionMausoleum construction142
- Jesup Comm School DistrictSchool district140FTE
- Independence Premium FoodsPet food, dog and cat, manufacturing113
- MasterBrand CabinetsWood kitchen cabinet and countertop manufacturing100
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 18 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,689 people in all across the county; Rowley has none of its own. 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
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Rowley’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 Buchanan County.
Rowley home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Rowley$254,591
- 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 Rowley address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Rowley — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.