Rent, home values, family budgets, pay and taxes for the Des Moines metro area, county by county.
Across the 6 counties in the metro with their own Zillow home value, the median typical home is worth $304,909. Values changed +1.7% over the past year and +22.8% over five years at the median county. A typical home costs 2.81 years of median family income at the median county.
With 10% down at 7.03%, the average 30-year rate on September 24, 2026, that home costs about $2,424 a month with tax, insurance and mortgage insurance, which takes $103,882 a year of income under the usual 28% guideline. The median family can afford its own county's typical home in 5 of the 6 counties, against 44.9% of counties nationally. Try it with your own income.
The most expensive counties in the metro are Dallas County ($355,844), Madison County ($340,284) and Warren County ($326,799); the least expensive are Jasper County ($233,447), Guthrie County ($277,286) and Polk County ($283,019).
The Economic Policy Institute prices what a modest but adequate standard of living costs in every county. In the median county of the metro, that comes to $47,068 a year for one adult and $99,026 for two adults and two children, of which $15,939 is childcare, against national averages of $47,367 and $101,771. Median family income is $107,604 in the median county.
Prices across Iowa as a whole run 12.2% below the national average and rents 34.7% below the national average, by the Bureau of Economic Analysis's state measure. Median pay across all jobs in the state is $48,540 a year. Iowa's top income tax rate on wages is 3.8%. These are statewide figures, not measured for the metro itself. The metro lies within Iowa. Compare a salary with another state or work out take-home pay.
| Dallas County | $355,844 | −0.8% | $1,547 | $133,499 | $104,711 |
| Guthrie County | $277,286 | +6.4% | — | $96,548 | $100,262 |
| Jasper County | $233,447 | +5.3% | $1,032 | $88,171 | $92,105 |
| Madison County | $340,284 | +1.0% | — | $111,892 | $99,898 |
| Polk County | $283,019 | +0.5% | $1,259 | $103,316 | $98,154 |
| Warren County | $326,799 | +2.4% | $1,187 | $112,091 | $97,242 |
A dash means the source publishes no figure for that county. Metro membership follows Zillow's own county-to-metro assignment.
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Cost of living · Income tax · Child care costs
Metro areasDes Moines, IA
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