Readlyn, Iowa.
Typical home $225,843 (+0.9% in a year). Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$613 (+107%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,076 +1%
- $223,767$225,843 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $48,712 +28%
- $177,131$225,843 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.
- Readlyn$1,185
- 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 Readlyn, IA rose 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Readlyn, Bremer County, Iowa
Readlyn is a city of 845 people in Bremer County. Half its households earn more than $86,103 a year and half less, against $86,784 across Bremer County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 81% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 19% are rented. Unemployment in Bremer County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.7% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Readlyn is a very small Iowa city where most homes are lived in by their owners, a good deal more than is typical across the country. Household incomes sit close to those of Bremer County as a whole, and relatively few people live below the poverty line. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm in July, with rain and melted snow spread through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in transport, warehousing and utilities, and in shops. Across Bremer County, some of the largest workplaces are Wartburg College, Waverly Health Center and the Waverly-Shell Rock Community School District. A typical commute is a fairly long one, and only a small share of people work from home.
Things to do. Outdoor places lie within a longer drive, including the Shell Rock River and Hartman Reserve Nature Center, a protected area. For something indoors, the Cotton Theatre is a longer drive away, and the Cedar Valley Arboretum & Botanic Gardens is a botanical garden that is also a longer drive from town.
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- 307households
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Bremer County had 9,525 jobs in 2025, 1.7% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 25° and lows near 7°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 62°. About 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tripoli weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Bremer County
- Wartburg CollegeUniversity or college457
- Waverly Health CenterCritical access hospital356FTE
- Waverly-Shell Rock Comm School DistrictSchool district351FTE
- Schumacher Elevator CompanyElevator installation290
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters273
- Bartels Lutheran Retirement CommunityLong term care244
- FolienceAmbulances assembling on purchased chassis205
- United Equipment AccessoriesRelays, electrical and electronic, manufacturing171
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 21 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,411 people in all across the county; Readlyn has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Readlyn’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Bremer County and the Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA metro.
Readlyn home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Readlyn$225,843
- 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.
- Readlyn6
Zip codes with a Readlyn address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Readlyn — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.