Wakonda, South Dakota.
Typical home $253,879 (+10.5% in a year). Vermillion, SD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$844 (+173%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $24,173 +11%
- $229,706$253,879 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $85,438 +51%
- $168,441$253,879 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.
- Wakonda$1,333
- South Dakota$1,668
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 8 years.
Typical home values in Wakonda, SD rose 10.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Wakonda, Clay County, South Dakota
Wakonda is a town of 347 people in Clay County. Half its households earn more than $61,250 a year and half less, against $56,850 across Clay County. 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 people in Clay County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Wakonda is a very small town in Clay County, South Dakota, where neighbors are likely to know one another. Household incomes run higher than across the county, and a typical home costs a good deal less than in much of the country. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and a fair amount of snow, while summers turn warm in July and the year brings a moderate amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in restaurants and hotels, in shops, and in farming. Across Clay County, the University of South Dakota, Sanford Medical Center Vermillion and the Vermillion School District are among the largest workplaces. Unemployment in the county is lower than a year ago, and the county has added a few more jobs. Commutes are fairly short, and a small share of people work from home.
Things to do. Marindahl Lake and Turkey Ridge Creek are a short drive away, for time on the water or along a creek. A longer drive brings Spirit Mound Historic Prairie, a protected stretch of prairie, and the National Music Museum. Lewis and Clark Lake, a large reservoir on the Missouri, is also a longer drive.
Report a mistake
- 23 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What people in Clay County 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 27° and lows near 7°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°. About 30 inches of snow and 27 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Centerville Southeast weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Clay County
- University of South DakotaUniversity or college1,584
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters234
- Sanford Medical Center VermillionCritical access hospital189FTE
- Vermillion School District 13-1School district188FTE
- Polaris IndustriesGeneral warehousing and storage162
- GolubGrocery stores152
- Sanford HealthNursing homes110
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores82
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,070 people in all across the county; Wakonda has none of its own. 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
- HailVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Wakonda’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 Clay County and the Vermillion, SD metro.
Wakonda home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Wakonda$253,879
- South Dakota$317,874
- 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 Wakonda address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Wakonda — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.