Woden, Iowa.
Typical home $103,972 (-4.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$280 (+106%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $4,763 -4%
- $108,735$103,972 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $18,541 +22%
- $85,431$103,972 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.
- Woden$546
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Woden, IA fell 4.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Woden, Hancock County, Iowa
Woden is a city of 188 people in Hancock County. Half its households earn more than $50,000 a year and half less, against $70,601 across Hancock County. Unemployment in Hancock County was 2.8% in August 2026, and the county had 3.7% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Hancock County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Woden is a very small Iowa city, one of the smallest places a reader is likely to look up, where neighbors tend to know one another. Household incomes in town run well below the county's, and homes are modest in price. Winters are cold and the summers warm, with rain and melted snow spread through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops, and farming, forestry and mining. Across Hancock County, some of the biggest employers are Stellar Industries, which makes and installs truck equipment, Hawkeye Pride Egg Farms, and Hancock County Health System, a critical access hospital. The typical commute is long, and very few people work from home. Jobs across the county dropped slightly last year, and unemployment there is a little lower than a year ago.
Things to do. Plum Creek, a river, is a short drive away and the closest of the listed places. Farther out, a longer drive brings you to Clear Lake, and to Pilot Knob State Park, a protected area. Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge is also a longer drive away, for those who enjoy watching wildlife.
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- 23%of adults have a degree
- 32 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What people in Hancock County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Hancock County had 5,761 jobs in 2025, 3.7% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 24° and lows near 6°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 62°. About 34 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Britt 3E weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Hancock County
- Stellar IndustriesManufacturing and installation of truck equipment510
- Hawkeye Pride Egg FarmsChicken egg production319
- VocationalManufacturing plant282
- Hancock County Health SystemCritical access hospital166FTE
- Garner-Hayfield-Ventura Comm School DistrictSchool district118FTE
- Michael FoodsEgg substitutes manufacturing115
- Westview Care CenterSkilled nursing facilities98
- West Hancock Comm School DistrictSchool district89FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 21 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,168 people in all across the county; Woden has none of its own. Hospitals come 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively 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 Woden’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 Hancock County.
Woden home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Woden$103,972
- 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 Woden address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Woden — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.