Vermillion, South Dakota.
Typical home $271,465 (+1.5% in a year), asking rent $812 . Vermillion, SD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$792 (+125%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $3,960 +1%
- $267,504$271,465 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $67,791 +33%
- $203,673$271,465 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.
- Vermillion$1,425
- South Dakota$1,668
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Vermillion, SD rose 1.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Vermillion, Clay County, South Dakota
Vermillion is a city of 11,695 people in Clay County. Half its households earn more than $50,456 a year and half less, against $56,850 across Clay County; 24% of its people live below the poverty line. 42% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 58% are rented. Unemployment in Clay County was 2.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Vermillion is a college town, and it feels like one. Residents are much younger than in most American towns, and more of the adults here hold a four-year degree than in most places. Most households rent rather than own, and incomes run below the county's overall, with a larger share of people living in poverty than is typical. 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. Much of the work in town is in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, shops and manufacturing. The biggest workplaces are the University of South Dakota, Walmart and Sanford Medical Center Vermillion. Most people have a short drive to work, and unemployment across Clay County has been low and has crept down a little over the past year.
Things to do. In town, the National Music Museum and the W.H. Over Museum are both close at hand, and Prentis Park offers green space along with White Stone Creek. A short drive brings you to Spirit Mound Historic Prairie, a protected stretch of prairie, and to the Vermillion River. For a longer outing, Lewis and Clark Lake and Ponca State Park are a longer drive away.
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- 4,312households
- 51%of adults have a degree
- 24%below the poverty line
- 17 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Clay County had 6,112 jobs in 2025, 0.8% 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 86° and lows near 63°. About 28 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Vermillion Southeast weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Vermillion
- University of South DakotaUniversity or college1,584
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters234
- Sanford Medical Center VermillionCritical access hospital189FTE
- Vermillion School District 13-1School district188FTE
- Sanford HealthNursing homes110
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores82
- Nutrien Ag SolutionsFarm supplies merchant wholesalers36
- Running SupplyRetail31
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 756 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- LightningVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Vermillion’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 Clay County and the Vermillion, SD metro.
Vermillion home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Vermillion$271,465
- South Dakota$317,874
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Vermillion listings — the market is cooling.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Vermillion31.95%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Vermillion65
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Vermillion12
Zip codes with a Vermillion address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Vermillion — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.