Stella, Nebraska.
Typical home $159,068 (+5.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$448 (+116%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,505 +6%
- $150,563$159,068 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $28,562 +22%
- $130,506$159,068 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.
- Stella$835
- Nebraska$1,461
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Stella, NE rose 5.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Stella, Richardson County, Nebraska
Stella is a village of 145 people in Richardson County. Unemployment in Richardson County was 2.8% in August 2026, and the county had 1.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Richardson 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Stella is a very small village in Richardson County, in the southeastern corner of Nebraska, where farmland surrounds the town and neighbors tend to know one another. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and snow arrives most years, while summers turn properly warm by July. Precipitation is spread through the year, so gardens and fields see both snow and rain.
Work. Residents of the area work in schools, hospitals and social care, in farming, in manufacturing and in shops. Across Richardson County, some of the largest workplaces are Community Medical Center, Falls City Public Schools and FAST Global Solutions. Jobs in the county slipped slightly last year, though unemployment there remains low.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Indian Cave State Park is a protected area a longer drive away, and Big Lake State Park is another. Those who like gardens can head to the Itha T. Krumme Memorial Arboretum, a botanical garden, also a longer drive away. For an evening out, the New Opera House in Auburn is a theatre within a longer drive.
Report a mistake
- 9%below the poverty line
What people in Richardson County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Richardson County had 2,318 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 67°. About 30 inches of snow and 32 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Auburn Ese weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Richardson County
- Community Medical CenterGeneral medical and surgical hospitals246
- Falls City Public SchoolsSchool district161FTE
- Community Medical CenterCritical access hospital145FTE
- Humboldt Table Rock Steinauer SchoolsSchool district81FTE
- FAST Global SolutionsIndustrial truck, tractor, trailer, and stacker machinery manufacturing68
- Falls City Care CenterSkilled nursing facilities61
- Falls City Nursing & RehabSkilled nursing facilities60
- AirlancoHoops, metal, fabricated from purchased metal54
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 563 people in all across the county; Stella 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
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Stella’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 Richardson County.
Stella home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Stella$159,068
- Nebraska$278,299
- 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 Stella address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Stella — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.