Stuart, Iowa.
Typical home $226,600 (+4.3% in a year). Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$652 (+121%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,271 +4%
- $217,330$226,600 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $49,071 +28%
- $177,530$226,600 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.
- Stuart$1,189
- 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 Stuart, IA rose 4.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Stuart, Adair County, Iowa
Stuart is a city of 1,782 people in Adair County. Half its households earn more than $65,000 a year and half less, against $68,092 across Adair County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 71% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 29% are rented. Unemployment in Adair County was 2.1% in August 2026, and the county had 10.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then finance and property.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Stuart is a small Iowa city in Adair County, where most homes are lived in by their owners. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and a four-year degree is less common among adults than in many places. Winters are cold, 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 mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with banks, insurance and property, shops, and transport and warehousing also employing many people. Among the largest workplaces in Stuart are the West Central Valley Comm School District, Cox Enterprises and Wausau Supply Company. The commute is fairly short, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Lake Anita State Park and Springbrook State Park are protected areas a longer drive away, and the Platte River is also a longer drive away. For a day indoors, the Iowa Aviation Museum is a museum, also a longer drive away.
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- 726households
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Adair County had 3,350 jobs in 2025, 10.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 63°. About 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Guthrie Ctr weather station, 15 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Stuart
- West Central Valley Comm School DistrictSchool district145FTE
- Cox EnterprisesAutomobile and other motor vehicle merchant wholesalers32
- Wausau Supply CompanySiding merchant wholesalers22
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 54 people in all. School districts come 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
- TornadoesVery high
- Strong windVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively 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 Stuart’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 Adair County and the Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA metro.
Stuart home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Stuart$226,600
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Stuart17
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Stuart address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Stuart — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.