Clarence, Iowa.
Typical home $197,705 (+3.0% in a year). Cedar Rapids, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$568 (+121%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,756 +3%
- $191,949$197,705 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $43,179 +28%
- $154,525$197,705 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.
- Clarence$1,038
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Clarence, IA rose 3.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Clarence, Cedar County, Iowa
Clarence is a city of 1,039 people in Cedar County. 67% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 33% are rented. Unemployment in Cedar County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.7% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Clarence is a small city in Cedar County, Iowa, where most homes are lived in by their owners. Typical home values here are modest, and household incomes in the county sit comfortably above what many small Iowa towns see. Few adults have a four-year degree, and most people know their neighbors by name.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, retail and other services close behind. Across Cedar County, some of the largest workplaces are the West Branch Community School District, Tipton Community School District and Nordex USA. Commutes are fairly long, and only a small number of people work from home.
Things to do. The Hardacre Theatre is a short drive away and is the closest option for an evening out. A longer drive reaches the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, and Wapsipinicon State Park offers a quiet protected area for walking and being outdoors. Winters are cold and snowy, with warm summers and a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
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- 473households
- 9%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cedar County had 5,205 jobs in 2025, 0.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 62°. About 40 inches of snow and 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Lowden weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Cedar County
- Schenker Logistics, Iowa City/West BranchGeneral warehousing and storage268
- Nordex USACommercial and industrial machinery repair and maintenance services220
- West Branch Comm School DistrictSchool district146FTE
- Tipton Comm School DistrictSchool district144FTE
- North Cedar Comm School DistrictSchool district142FTE
- Cedar CountyExecutive and legislative office combinations141
- US VentureTire and tube merchant wholesalers128
- Durant Comm School DistrictSchool district118FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 20 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,580 people in all across the county; Clarence has none 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
- Strong windVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Clarence’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Cedar County and the Cedar Rapids, IA metro.
Clarence home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Clarence$197,705
- 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.
- Clarence7
Zip codes with a Clarence address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Clarence — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.