Union, Iowa.
Typical home $98,560 (+10.7% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$206 (+66%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $9,512 +11%
- $89,048$98,560 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.
- Union$517
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Union, IA rose 10.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Union, Hardin County, Iowa
Union is a city of 399 people in Hardin County. 87% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 13% are rented. Unemployment in Hardin County was 3.6% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Union is a very small Iowa city, home to far fewer people than most towns of any kind. Nearly all of its homes are lived in by their owners, and a typical home costs well under what many Americans pay. Fewer residents live below the poverty line than in many places, and a four-year degree is held by a smaller group of adults than in the country as a whole. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm in July, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents of Union work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing and in the building trades. Across Hardin County, the largest workplaces include the Iowa Falls Community School District, Hansen Family Hospital and Scenic Living Communities. Unemployment in the county has risen a little over the past year, while the number of jobs there has edged up. A typical commute is a modest one, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. Pine Lake State Park, a protected area, is a short drive away and is the nearest of the better known outdoor places. Minerva Creek, a river, is also a short drive from town. A longer drive leads to the Glick-Sower House, a museum.
Report a mistake
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Hardin County had 6,553 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than 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 33 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Eldora weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Hardin County
- Iowa Falls Comm School DistrictSchool district181FTE
- Hansen Family HospitalCritical access hospital135FTE
- Scenic Living Communities623110 nursing care facilities128
- AGWSR Comm School DistrictSchool district120FTE
- WalmartDiscount department stores116
- Eldora-New Providence Comm School DistrictSchool district91FTE
- Fareway Stores, Inc. 559 Iowa FallsGrocery stores90
- Ellsworth Community CollegeTwo-year college85
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 25 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,503 people in all across the county; Union has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- HailVery high
- Strong windVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively 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 Union’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 Hardin County.
Union home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Union$98,560
- 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 Union address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Union — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.