Van Horne, Iowa.
Typical home $303,207 (+10.2% in a year). Cedar Rapids, IA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$891 (+127%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $27,951 +10%
- $275,256$303,207 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $81,970 +37%
- $221,238$303,207 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.
- Van Horne$1,591
- Iowa$1,242
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Van Horne, IA rose 10.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Van Horne, Benton County, Iowa
Van Horne is a city of 774 people in Benton County. Half its households earn more than $77,344 a year and half less, against $86,962 across Benton County; 15% of its people live below the poverty line. 85% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 15% are rented. Unemployment in Benton County was 3.3% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then finance and property.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Van Horne is a very small Iowa city where nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Incomes here run below the county's, and a good number of residents live under the poverty line. The typical home is worth a fair amount for a town this size, and the population skews a little younger than older, with fewer adults holding a four-year degree than in many places.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in banks, insurance and property, manufacturing, and shops. Across Benton County, the largest workplaces include Frontier Cooperative, which makes spices and spice mixes, along with the Vinton-Shellsburg Community School District and Virginia Gay Hospital. Unemployment across the county is lower than it was a year earlier, though the county has slightly fewer jobs than the year before. Many people drive a fair way to work, and a small number work from home.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Hanging Bog State Preserve is a park and Pleasant Creek State Recreation Area is a protected area, both a longer drive away, as is Honey Creek, a river. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm days, so the outdoors suits the milder seasons best. Museums are also a longer drive away, including the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library.
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- 239households
- 22%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Benton County had 6,040 jobs in 2025, 0.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 26° and lows near 8°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 60°. About 34 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Vinton weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Benton County
- Frontier CooperativeSpices and spice mix manufacturing441
- Vinton-Shellsburg Comm School DistrictSchool district271FTE
- Benton Comm School DistrictSchool district214FTE
- ClickstopCrating goods for shipping212
- Center Point-Urbana Comm School DistrictSchool district198FTE
- Virginia GAY HospitalCritical access hospital131FTE
- Fareway Stores, Inc. 462 VintonGrocery stores100
- Belle Plaine Comm School DistrictSchool district62FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,196 people in all across the county; Van Horne has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Van Horne’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 Benton County and the Cedar Rapids, IA metro.
Van Horne home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Van Horne$303,207
- 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.
- Van Horne6
Zip codes with a Van Horne address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Van Horne — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.