Wapello, Iowa.
Typical home $145,612 (+1.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$380 (+99%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,323 +2%
- $143,290$145,612 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $27,247 +23%
- $118,365$145,612 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.
- Wapello$764
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Wapello, IA rose 1.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Wapello, Louisa County, Iowa
Wapello is a city of 2,084 people in Louisa County. 68% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 32% are rented. Unemployment in Louisa County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 5.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Wapello is a small city in Louisa County, Iowa, and most homes here are lived in by their owners. Typical home values are modest, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than is common nationally. Winters are cold and summers warm, with rain and melted snow spread through the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in professional and business services. Among the largest workplaces in Wapello are the Wapello Comm School District, Care Initiatives and Tri-State Envelope. Jobs across Louisa County have shrunk over the past year, and unemployment there is a little lower than a year ago. Few people work from home, and the typical commute is a moderate one.
Things to do. The Iowa River is a short drive away, as is Port Louisa National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area for walking and watching wildlife. Also a short drive off is the Toolesboro Mound Group, an archaeological site that speaks to the long history of people living along these rivers. Big River State Forest, a longer drive away, offers more woodland to explore.
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- 830households
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Louisa County had 3,697 jobs in 2025, 5.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 32° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 65°. About 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the New Boston Dam weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Wapello
- Wapello Comm School DistrictSchool district96FTE
- Care Initiatives72
- Tri-State EnvelopeOffice supplies, die-cut paper, made from purchased paper or paperboard32
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 104 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
- Strong windVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Wapello’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 Louisa County.
Wapello home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Wapello$145,612
- Iowa$236,623
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
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.
- Wapello19
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Wapello address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Wapello — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.