Soldier, Iowa.
Typical home $105,340 (+0.9% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$315 (+133%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $905 +1%
- $104,435$105,340 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $23,311 +28%
- $82,029$105,340 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.
- Soldier$553
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Soldier, IA rose 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Soldier, Monona County, Iowa
Soldier is a city of 184 people in Monona County. Unemployment in Monona County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Monona County work in schools and health care, then farming.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Soldier is a very small city in Monona County, in western Iowa, with a population small enough that neighbors are likely to know one another. Homes here are modest in price, and the county's household incomes sit at a middling level. Winters are cold, with January highs a little below freezing and lows well into the cold, and plenty of snow falls through the season, while July is warm.
Work. Residents of Soldier work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by farming, forestry and mining, then manufacturing and shops. Across Monona County, the largest workplaces include Burgess Health Center, a critical access hospital, and school districts such as Maple Valley-Anthon Oto Comm School District and West Monona Comm School District. Relatively few adults in town hold a four-year degree, and the county's job market has stayed steady, with unemployment unchanged from a year earlier.
Things to do. Preparation Canyon State Park, a protected area, is a short drive away and is the nearest spot for a walk outdoors. Farther afield, Lewis and Clark State Park is another protected area, a longer drive away, and the Onawa IOOF Opera House is a theatre, also a longer drive away. The Loess Hills, listed as a park, make another longer trip for anyone wanting to see the area's well-known landscape.
Report a mistake
- 12%of adults have a degree
What people in Monona County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Monona County had 2,556 jobs in 2025, 1.0% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 64°. About 29 inches of snow and 32 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Castana Experiment Farm weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Monona County
- Burgess Health CenterCritical access hospital153FTE
- Maple Valley-Anthon Oto Comm School DistrictSchool district109FTE
- West Monona Comm School DistrictSchool district106FTE
- Maple HeightsNursing homes90
- Whiting Comm School DistrictSchool district43FTE
- Trivium Life Services (Onawa)Habilitation job counseling and training, vocational42
- Westendorf Mfg CoBalers, farm-type, manufacturing38
- AVE PLP423820 farm and garden machinery and equipment merchant wholesalers23
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 6 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 234 people in all across the county; Soldier has none 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Soldier’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Monona County.
Soldier home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Soldier$105,340
- 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 Soldier address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Soldier — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.