Yale, Iowa.
Typical home $191,152 (+6.8% in a year). Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$397 (+65%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $12,207 +7%
- $178,945$191,152 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.
- Yale$1,003
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Yale, IA rose 6.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Yale, Guthrie County, Iowa
Yale is a city of 267 people in Guthrie County. Unemployment in Guthrie County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 2.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Guthrie County work in schools and health care, then finance and property.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Yale is a very small city in Guthrie County, Iowa, where neighbors are likely to know one another by sight. The population is small and the median age is a little above the middle of the road for the country. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and very few people work from home. Winters are cold, with January highs near freezing and lows well below it, while July is warm; about as much rain and melted snow falls over the year as in many parts of the Midwest.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with banks, insurance and property, manufacturing and shops also employing many. Across Guthrie County, the largest workplaces include Rose Acre Farms, the West Central Valley Comm School District and the Guthrie County Hospital. Unemployment across the county was a little lower than a year earlier, though the county had slightly fewer jobs last year than the year before.
Things to do. Springbrook State Park, a protected area, is a short drive away and is the closest place for walking and time outdoors. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to Ledges State Park, another protected area, and to the Iowa Arboretum, a botanical garden. Each makes a reasonable day out from town.
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- 13%of adults have a degree
- 2%work from home
What people in Guthrie County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Guthrie County had 3,205 jobs in 2025, 2.0% fewer 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 85° and lows near 63°. About 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Guthrie Ctr weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Guthrie County
- Rose Acre FarmsChicken egg production172
- West Central Valley Comm School DistrictSchool district145FTE
- Panorama Comm School DistrictSchool district123FTE
- Guthrie County HospitalCritical access hospital110FTE
- Guthrie Center Comm School DistrictSchool district81FTE
- Iowa TrenchlessUtility line, construction74
- The New HomesteadHomes for the elderly with nursing care73
- Poet Bioprocessing MenloDenatured alcohol manufacturing56
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 976 people in all across the county; Yale has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- TornadoesVery high
- Strong windVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Yale’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 Guthrie County and the Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA metro.
Yale home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Yale$191,152
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Yale6
Zip codes with a Yale address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Yale — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.