Boone is the county seat of Boone County and a full-service small city on US Route 30: its own school district, its own county-owned hospital, its own community college campus, all inside 9.08 square miles. It sits about 17 miles west of Ames, and the City of Boone describes itself as 42 miles north of Des Moines. If you want a market priced off Boone County rather than off the metro growth corridors, Boone belongs on your list. Here is the honest read from someone who works this corner of Central Iowa.
Boone lines up with your search if you...
Boone is served by the Boone Community School District, which enrolled 1,978 PK-12 students in 2024-25. The district runs narrow grade bands, so students change buildings more often than in a district built on conventional K-5 elementaries. Here is the structure, with 2024-25 enrollment:
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, 2024-25 school year.
Ledges Elementary opened in fall 2023, consolidating the former Lincoln and Page buildings into a single PK-1 site. That consolidation is why the grade bands are shaped the way they are, and it is recent enough that older online sources still describe the previous arrangement.
I do not publish test scores or graduation rates here, because the versions floating around online are all secondhand. For proficiency, growth, and accountability data, I recommend the Iowa Department of Education School Performance Profiles as the current primary source. I also keep a separate write-up on Boone schools with the full building-by-building detail, and the right move is always to confirm attendance boundaries with the district for a specific address before you write an offer.
Boone is not a collection of master-planned subdivisions. With a flat population inside 9.08 square miles, most of what trades here is existing housing stock. Think in terms of three types rather than a dozen sub-markets:
Older in-town homes near downtown and the Lincoln Highway corridor - Gridded streets within walking distance of Main Street, the schools, and the depot. This is the deepest part of the inventory and the most affordable entry point in the city. Underwrite roof, mechanicals, electrical service, and original plumbing. Suited to buyers who will trade updated finishes for price and location.
Newer construction on the edges of the city - Modern floor plans, attached garages, and larger lots than the same money buys in the metro growth corridors. This bucket is thin, so timing matters more than it does downtown.
Acreages outside city limits - The ground around Boone opens into larger parcels with outbuildings. These carry their own homework: well and septic inspections, road maintenance, and financing that not every lender handles the same way. Budget the inspections and the timeline before you write.
One practical note that applies across all three: a Union Pacific mainline runs through Boone. On streets close to the line, I recommend standing at the address at different times of day before you decide anything.
Boone sits on US Route 30. The original Lincoln Highway ran through downtown, and a four-lane US 30 bypass was built south of the city centre in the late 1960s, which is what carries through traffic today. Iowa Highway 17 intersects US 30 east of Boone. A Union Pacific mainline runs through the city.
Ames is about 17 miles east. For the metro, I use the City of Boone's own description: 42 miles north of Des Moines. I am deliberately not publishing drive times in minutes on this page, because the estimates I found conflicted with each other. The right move is to drive your actual route at the hour you would actually drive it, twice, before you commit to an address.
Rail history is Boone's signature. The Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad is operated by the Boone Railroad Historical Society, established in 1983, and runs excursions from Memorial Day through October 31 behind China Railways JS No. 8419, a working steam locomotive. The route crosses the Bass Point Creek High Bridge, 156 feet above the creek. About 3 miles west of Boone stands the Kate Shelley High Bridge: the 1901 original is 2,685 feet long and 185 feet above the Des Moines River, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 13, 2009; its replacement span opened on August 20, 2009.
Ledges State Park is about 4 miles south, one of Iowa's first state parks, dating to 1924, with a sandstone canyon reaching 100 feet and stone structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. The Iowa Arboretum, founded in 1968, covers 170 acres and is located in Madrid, in Boone County. Pufferbilly Days, established in 1976 and produced by the Boone County Chamber, runs in mid-September; the 2026 edition is September 18-20 and is the 50th.
The employment picture inside the city includes the Fareway wholesale office and F. William Beckwith Distribution Center at 2300 Industrial Park Road, Boone County Hospital, Boone Community School District, the DMACC Boone Campus, Alliant Energy, and Lane Trailer Manufacturing. I do not quote employee counts, because those move faster than any page can keep up with. Boone County Hospital is county-owned and designated a Critical Access Hospital. The DMACC Boone Campus has occupied its current 23-acre site since September 1968 and has been part of DMACC since July 1, 1969; all of DMACC's intercollegiate athletics are based there.
Two pieces of local history that get repeated wrong, stated plainly: Fareway's first store opened in Boone on May 12, 1938, but the company moved its corporate headquarters to Johnston in 2024. The first Casey's opened in Boone in 1968, and Casey's has been headquartered in Ankeny since 1990. Both are Boone heritage. Neither company is headquartered in Boone today.
I will give you the number I can stand behind, and I will tell you exactly what it is. These are Boone COUNTY figures, not city-of-Boone figures.
Source: Redfin, three months ending June 2026. County-level, not city-level.
Why county and not city? Because the city-level series for a town this size is too thin to publish honestly. Redfin's Boone city page was still showing November 2025 the last time I checked, and that month recorded 9 sales. One unusual closing moves a 9-sale month by tens of thousands of dollars. The county figure, built on 60 sales, is the steadier read, and the right comparison for any specific house is still the handful of genuinely similar recent sales near it.
In plain language: prices in Boone County were flat year over year, and a median of 41 days on market describes a market where a correctly priced, move-in-ready home transacts in a reasonable window while an overpriced or dated one sits. Condition and pricing drive the outcome here far more than the calendar does.
For a current snapshot of what is actually selling around Boone, I send a free monthly Central Iowa market report. Subscribe at Jackson's Hub.
Whether you are a first-time buyer working the US 30 corridor, a move-up buyer weighing Boone against the metro, or an investor sizing up a house hack, I can walk through what your specific budget buys here versus competing communities. No pressure, no sales pitch, just the numbers and the honest reality of a smaller market.
Nothing on this page is lending, tax, or legal advice. Take financing questions to a licensed lender, tax questions to a CPA, and contract questions to an Iowa real estate attorney.
Jackson Krile is a REALTOR® on the Flanders Team at RE/MAX Real Estate Center. Licensed in Iowa #S66867000. DMAAR + CIBR member. Serving Central Iowa.
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