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Place dossier plate
SheetIA-ESTHERVILLE-IA · Estherville, IA 5,865 pop · income 27th pct · 4 tracts
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Estherville
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Estherville on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Oelwein · lowest
49,821
Oelwein · lowest
49,821 median HH income
30.6% of the leader · rank #1
Xenia · near
54,616
Xenia · near
54,616 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #2
Estherville · this city
54,624
Estherville · this city
54,624 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #3
Ossineke · near
54,625
Ossineke · near
54,625 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #4
Hardin · near
54,625
Hardin · near
54,625 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #5
Celoron · near
54,632
Celoron · near
54,632 median HH income
33.5% of the leader · rank #6
Polk City · highest
163,000
Polk City · highest
163,000 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Estherville on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 5,865.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Estherville - the verdict
Estherville ranks in the 27th percentile for household income and the 82nd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
27th
percentile, household income
8th
percentile, home value
11th
percentile, median rent
82nd
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Estherville, IA
Estherville is a small town in Iowa, home to 5,865 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Estherville households earn a median of $54,624 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 8.1%. Home values in Estherville run a median of $96,300, and the median resident age is 40.5 years. Educational attainment runs 13.2% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 63.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 69 residential building permits were authorized in Estherville (Building Boom), up 3350% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Estherville reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 585.4 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Estherville's yearly average temperature at 44.8°F with 31.7 inches of precipitation per year.
Living costs in Iowa run below the national norm: the state registers 87.8 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $989 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $212 across Iowa, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. The average commute for Estherville workers runs 20.5 minutes, with 74.8% driving alone and 5.1% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 39.7 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Estherville's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from housing and income to within-city variation to schools and households to climate and hazard context to work and mobility to population change to reported crime to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Estherville, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, commute-mode shares, local building permits, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Estherville?
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 1.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 8.1%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. The ratio makes housing the clearest place to start this profile, but a low multiple can coexist with slow demand, older stock, or household-level hardship. Compare the home-value distribution and same-state peer table before treating it as an advantage.
What can 4 Census tracts reveal inside Estherville?
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
What does the education layer cover for Estherville?
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 13.2% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
Which cities make useful reference points for Estherville?
Within Iowa, the closest population matches are Oelwein (5,878 residents, $49,821 income); Polk City (5,833 residents, $163,000 income); Asbury (5,949 residents, $130,071 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Spring Grove, IL (5,866 residents); East Farmingdale, NY (5,866 residents); Media, PA (5,868 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in Estherville?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 44.8°F, with 31.7 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Iowa is 39.7 out of 100. Climate normals describe long-run weather; the FEMA score on PlainCities is a state average of county NRI inputs and combines hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience.
The two sources should not be blended into one comfort or safety score. Use the climate values for baseline conditions and the risk index as a prompt to inspect specific hazards, insurance, and local emergency guidance for a particular address.
Mean temperature
44.8°F
Annual precipitation
31.7 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
39.7
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What does the journey to work look like in Estherville?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 74.8%. The reported mean trip to work is 20.5 minutes.
Public transit
0.0%
Work from home
5.1%
Drive alone
74.8%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 3,146 workers age 16+.
Is Estherville growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -72 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 69 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
-1.2%
2025 estimate
5,807
2020 estimate
5,879
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Estherville?
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 585.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 74% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
309.9
Violent rate
275.5
Total reported rate
585.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Below median income · poverty 8.1% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
87.8 (US=100)
Very affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Iowa average
D
City profile score · Estherville, IA
45/100
5 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2023
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Cost of living A+
87.8 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Poverty rate D
8.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
276 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$54,624
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
13.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Estherville profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 94/100 (A+) · 87.8 index
Poverty rate: 47/100 (D) · 8.1%
Violent crime: 37/100 (F) · 276 /100k
Household income: 27/100 (F) · $54,624
Bachelor's+ share: 15/100 (F) · 13.2%
Where Estherville sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Estherville's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Estherville highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Estherville, IA (this city): home $96,300, crime 585/100k
Spring Grove, IL : home $371,200, crime 416/100k
Media, PA : home $398,400, crime 1,794/100k
Belmar, NJ : home $771,400, crime 1,986/100k
Hightstown, NJ : home $333,200, crime 754/100k
Oelwein, IA : home $96,800, crime 765/100k
Polk City, IA : home $385,000, crime 320/100k
Asbury, IA : home $312,400, crime 199/100k
Maquoketa, IA : home $126,800, crime 2,239/100k
Independence, IA : home $156,900, crime 820/100k
Anamosa, IA : home $164,900, crime 674/100k
How does Estherville compare to other US cities?
Where Estherville sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income27% higher than other cities
Home value8% pricier than other cities
Median rent11% pricier than other cities
Safety82% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Iowa alone, Estherville ranks #47 of 141 Iowa cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Estherville against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Iowa only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Iowa-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Estherville near the bottom of Iowa's cities
Among the 858 Iowa cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Estherville ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Estherville only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#664 of 845
21st percentile in Iowa
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 858
0th percentile in Iowa
Median Home Value
#564 of 849
33rd percentile in Iowa
Poverty Rate
#311 of 858
63rd percentile in Iowa
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#606 of 858
29th percentile in Iowa
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Iowa only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
27th percentile nationally for median household income · 82nd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Estherville's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Estherville's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Estherville's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$96,300Among the most affordablemore affordable than 92% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Estherville's home-value-to-income ratio: 1.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#909 of 15,516
More affordable than 94% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#881 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 1.8×, Estherville sits in the affordable band:
national rank #909 of 15,516 and #881 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$54,624Estherville, IA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Estherville, IA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Estherville, IA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)13.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)8.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)63.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
5,865
Median Income
$54,624
Median Home Value
$96,300
Median Age
40.5
Poverty Rate
8.1%
Labor force participation
63.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
13.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
585.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
275.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
309.9
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Climate
Avg Temperature
44.8°F
Annual Precipitation
31.7"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Estherville's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
5,879 residents
2021
5,866 residents
2022
5,819 residents
2023
5,890 residents
2024
5,772 residents
2025
5,807 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
69
housing units authorized
Single-Family
2
detached homes
Multifamily
67
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
11.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
2
2
0
$0.4M
2020
2
2
0
$0.4M
2021
65
1
64
$5.0M
2022
2
2
0
$0.8M
2023
4
4
0
$1.3M
2024
69
2
67
$6.5M
Permit volume increased 3350% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
20.5 minutes
Drive Alone
74.8%
Carpool
10.6%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
6.2%
Work from Home
5.1%
Other
3.3%
Based on 3,146 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Iowa statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $212
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Iowa at $212 (electricity about $95 , water and sewer about $42 ).
These are Iowa statewide averages, not a meter reading for Estherville. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Iowa's BEA cost-of-living index is 87.8 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Estherville is $989/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Iowa statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 39.7 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Iowa statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Estherville sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Estherville compares to similar-size Iowa cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NOAA Climate Normals, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.