A typical Lester home is worth roughly $191,000
Builders were permitted 2 new homes in 2025.
What kind of housing town is Lester?
Read from the numbers below. The page puts what stands out first.
97% of Lester households own their home
Half of Lester’s homes were built before 1974.
Iowa: 72% own.
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020-2024 · figures for a place this size carry wide margins of error.
What it takes to buy in Lester
Try your own numbers below.
That covers a typical Lester home, with $82K to spare.
A two-bedroom rents for about $940 a month here, $280 less than owning.
An estimate, not a loan offer: payments of up to 28% of income, a 30-year fixed loan, the Iowa typical property tax (1.39% of value a year, from the Census) and insurance of about 0.35%. Mortgage insurance, HOA fees and other debts aren’t included.
A two-bedroom rents for about $940
Fair Market Rent a month, utilities included
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fair Market Rents by ZIP code (Lyon County, IA): the 40th-percentile rent plus utilities for a standard unit. Median rent and renters: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey.
2 new homes permitted in 2025
Builders were permitted 2 new homes in Lester in 2025, all single-family houses, worth about $1.2 million to build. Over the past 10 years, Lester has permitted 10 homes in all.
Every year as a table
| Year | New homes | Single-family | 2+ per building | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (Jan–Aug) | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2025 | 2 | 2 | 0 | $1.2 million |
| 2024 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $850,000 |
| 2023 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| 2022 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $300,000 |
| 2021 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $300,000 |
| 2020 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $300,000 |
| 2019 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $300,000 |
| 2018 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $300,000 |
| 2017 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $300,000 |
| 2016 | 1 | 1 | 0 | $300,000 |
| 2015 | 2 | 2 | 0 | $850,000 |
| 2014 | 2 | 2 | 0 | $545,000 |
| 2013 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
Homes authorized by building permits, counted in the year the permit was issued. U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey.
Neighbors talk housing
What Lester buyers, sellers and renters are saying.
Your answer becomes a post in Town Square.
Home values: Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), Zillow Research. Sales, days on market and supply: Redfin Data Center. Income, ownership, taxes and rent: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey. New homes: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey. Fair Market Rents: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Listings link to their publishers. The calculator is an estimate, not a loan offer.