Cantril, IA population, income and ZIP codes

Cantril city is a very small community in Iowa, with 307 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #598 of 1,026 ranked by population — larger than 41% of them. The median age here is 52.3 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in Cantril city earn a median of $37,500 a year, 52.3% below the national figure of $78,538 and 45% below the $67,791 median for the 290 Iowa cities we cover. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 8.3% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Cantril city is valued at $76,200, 74.9% below the national figure and 51% below the $156,300 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,025 a month, 27.1% below the national figure, or roughly $12,300 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 32.8% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 82.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

Cantril city is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 32.8% of median income while homes cost only 2× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. A median age of 52.3 puts Cantril city well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.