Thayer, Iowa.
Typical home $261,324 (+10.3% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$666 (+94%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $24,465 +10%
- $236,859$261,324 since Sep 2025
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.
- Thayer$1,372
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Thayer, IA rose 10.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Thayer, Union County, Iowa
Thayer is a city of 51 people in Union County. Unemployment in Union County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 1.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Union County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Thayer is a small city in Union County, in southern Iowa, and it is quiet enough that most people here know one another. Winters are colder than in most of the country and bring a good deal of snow, while summers are warm. Rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year, so the weather is wet as well as cold and warm by turns.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, or in manufacturing. Others work in shops and in the building trades. For many people in town, these jobs are close to home.
Things to do. The Grand River and the Platte River are both a longer drive away, and each is a river worth visiting. Green Valley State Park, a protected area, is also a longer drive away and suits a quiet walk outdoors.
Report a mistake
What people in Union County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Union County had 5,822 jobs in 2025, 1.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 64°. About 26 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Beaconsfield weather station, 15 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Union County
- Greater Regional Medical CenterCritical access hospital474FTE
- Bunn-O-MaticCoffee makers and urns, commercial-type, manufacturing458
- 3 WDC Acquisition Llc-ia 1746 Commerce RDAluminum foundries342
- Creston Comm School DistrictSchool district247FTE
- Southwestern Community CollegeTwo-year college226
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters215
- East Union Comm School DistrictSchool district101FTE
- Fareway Stores, Inc. 597 CrestonGrocery stores97
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 19 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,417 people in all across the county; Thayer has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Thayer’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 Union County.
Thayer home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Thayer$261,324
- 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 Thayer address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Thayer — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.