Bedford, Iowa.
Typical home $113,230 (+22.0% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$361 (+154%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $20,430 +22%
- $92,799$113,230 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $39,476 +54%
- $73,754$113,230 since Sep 2021
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.
- Bedford$594
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 8 years.
Typical home values in Bedford, IA rose 22.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Bedford, Taylor County, Iowa
Bedford is a city of 1,508 people in Taylor County. Half its households earn more than $60,781 a year and half less, against $67,740 across Taylor County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 78% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 22% are rented. Unemployment in Taylor County was 2.4% in August 2026, and the county had 1.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Bedford is a small city and the seat of Taylor County, Iowa, where most homes are lived in by their owners and typical home values are modest. Household incomes run below the county's, and residents are somewhat older than in many places, with relatively few adults holding a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers turn warm, with July the hottest; rain and melted snow fall fairly evenly through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in manufacturing, shops and the building trades. Across Taylor County, some of the largest workplaces are Papetti's of Iowa, an egg-processing plant, Precision Pulley & Idler, which makes belt conveyor systems, and the Bedford Community School District. Unemployment in the county is low, and the county has added jobs over the past year. The typical commute is short, and no one in town reports working from home.
Things to do. Lake of Three Fires State Park is the best-known place nearby, a park a short drive away. For time along the water, the Nodaway River and the West Fork One Hundred and Two River are both rivers a longer drive away, and Clear Creek is another.
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- 575households
- 14%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 0%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Taylor County had 2,060 jobs in 2025, 1.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 32° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 65°. About 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Bedford weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Taylor County
- Papetti's of IowaEggs, processed, manufacturing368
- Precision Pulley & IdlerBelt conveyor systems manufacturing124
- Gethmann Construction CoFoundation, building, poured concrete, contractors91
- Bedford Comm School DistrictSchool district87FTE
- Lenox Comm School DistrictSchool district81FTE
- Care Initiatives55
- Lenox Care CenterNursing homes55
- Dalton Ag EnterprisesHarvesting machinery and equipment, agriculture, manufacturing43
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 9 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 817 people in all across the county; Bedford has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); 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
- Heat wavesVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bedford’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 Taylor County.
Bedford home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bedford$113,230
- 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.
- Bedford15
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Bedford address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bedford — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.