Royal, Iowa.
Typical home $104,758 (+8.8% in a year). Spencer, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$296 (+116%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,461 +9%
- $96,297$104,758 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $29,673 +40%
- $75,085$104,758 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.
- Royal$550
- 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 Royal, IA rose 8.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Royal, Clay County, Iowa
Royal is a city of 379 people in Clay County. Half its households earn more than $56,893 a year and half less, against $65,428 across Clay County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Clay County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had about as many jobs in 2025 as the year before. The most people in Clay County work in schools and health care, 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Royal is a very small city in Clay County, Iowa, where neighbors are likely to know one another. Homes here cost less than in much of the country, and household incomes sit below the county's. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow add up to a moderate amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, manufacturing, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Clay County, some of the largest workplaces are Spencer Municipal Hospital, the Spencer Comm School District and Walmart. Few people work from home, and the typical commute is a short drive of about the length you would expect in a rural county.
Things to do. The Indian Village Site, an archaeological site, is a short drive away. A longer drive brings you to West Okoboji Lake, a lake, and Gull Point State Park, a protected area. Cayler Prairie State Preserve, also a longer drive, protects a piece of native prairie.
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- 15%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What people in Clay County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Clay County had 8,536 jobs in 2025, about as many as 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 84° and lows near 62°. About 27 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Spencer Municipal Airport weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Clay County
- Spencer Municipal HospitalGeneral hospital400FTE
- Spencer Comm School DistrictSchool district327FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters228
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores166
- Menards"home centers"144
- St. Luke Homes & Services, Inc.Nursing facility142
- UPSCouriers and express delivery services113
- Shine BrosMetal scrap and waste merchant wholesalers102
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 30 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,408 people in all across the county; Royal 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
- HailVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively 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 Royal’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 Clay County and the Spencer, IA metro.
Royal home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Royal$104,758
- 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 Royal address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Royal — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.