Iowa · the seller's side of the table

The price is what they pay. This is what you keep.

Commission, concessions, Iowa's revenue stamps, the repairs the inspection will find anyway, every month it sits — subtracted one line at a time from the number on the sign.

See what you'd keep

Your numbers stay on this page until you choose to send them.

Aerial view of a new subdivision surrounding an old farmstead in Dallas County, Iowa
A farmstead with a subdivision closing in around it — Clive and Waukee growing west.Lynn Betts, USDA NRCS · Public domain
30-yr fixed
6.95%▲ 0.19
Freddie Mac PMMS · week of Sep 17
15-yr fixed
6.26%▲ 0.17
Freddie Mac PMMS · week of Sep 17
Metro home prices, y/y
+2.3%
FHFA index, Des Moines–West Des Moines · Q2 2026
Iowa housing permits
1,512▲ 55.4% y/y
Census Bureau, private units · Jul 2026

Live via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and the Polk County Assessor’s recorded sales · refreshed every six hours

Your numbers
You'd walk away with
10.0% of the price goes to selling
$102,431
Sale price
$325,000
Commission
5% — negotiable, both sides
−$16,250
Buyer concessions
1% — closing help the buyer asks for
−$3,250
Title, abstract, attorney, recording
about 1%
−$3,250
Iowa revenue stamps
$1.60 per $1,000, seller pays
−$519
Repairs before listing
−$4,500
Staging and photography
−$900
Carrying cost while listed
2 months at $1,950
−$3,900
Mortgage payoff
−$190,000

$102,431 walks out the door with you. Selling costs $32,569, 10.0% of the price — high, mostly from repairs and carry. Every month on the market is $1,950; pricing right the first week is worth more than any staging.

If the metro's last year repeated — prices up 2.3% — waiting twelve months and paying twelve more months of carry would net roughly $15,925 less. That is what the last year did, carried forward.

Run it on my address

Assessed value, year built, lot size and what it last sold for — from the county, so the price line starts from a record instead of a guess.

When
Why

Sending looks your address up in the county record and shares the ledger with one listing agent who works your part of the metro. How that works.

Before you list

Three things worth fixing. Three things that only feel like they are.

Fix
  • Roof, furnace, water in the basement

    The inspection finds these; the buyer prices them at double. Fix or disclose with a quote in hand.

  • Paint, light, the front door

    The cheapest thousand dollars in the process. Neutral walls photograph; a dark hallway doesn't.

  • The price, in week one

    Metro homes priced right sell in weeks. Priced high, they sit, and every month costs you the carry line above.

Leave
  • A kitchen remodel

    You'll spend $40,000 to move the price $25,000. The buyer wanted a different kitchen anyway.

  • Finishing the basement

    Same arithmetic. Clean, dry and bright beats half-finished.

  • Waiting for the market

    Last year's trend is a trend. Twelve months of carry is a certainty.

Where the numbers come from

A ledger is only as honest as its footnotes.

Price
Yours to set. With an address, the county's assessed value and last sale anchor it.
Commission
Set at the metro's common ask; it has been negotiable since 2024 and the slider says so.
Revenue stamps
Iowa's real estate transfer tax, $1.60 per $1,000 above the first $500, paid by the seller. Computed exactly.
Concessions
Closing help buyers in the metro have been asking for this year, as a share of price.
Trend
FHFA's house-price index for Des Moines–West Des Moines, year over year, quarterly — shown as a trend, never a forecast.
Parcel
Assessed value, year built, lot size and last recorded sale from the Polk County Assessor.
A century-farm barn and silo at the edge of Ankeny, Iowa
A century farm on the edge of Ankeny. The lots nearby weren't lots twenty years ago.Carl Wycoff · CC BY 2.0
Asked, answered

How much will you make selling your house? The questions behind the ledger.

How much will I make selling my house in Iowa?
Take the sale price and subtract, in order: the commission (the metro's common ask is 5%, and it has been negotiable since 2024), Iowa's revenue stamps, about 1% in closing costs, the concessions buyers have been asking for this year (about 1%), the repairs the inspection turns up, and every month you carry the house while it's listed. Then the mortgage payoff. On a $335,000 sale — the Ankeny median over the last twelve months — the costs before payoff come to about $33,285, or 994% of the price. The ledger above does this line by line for your own number.
What is a home sale net proceeds calculator?
A net proceeds calculator estimates what a seller walks away with after every cost of selling is subtracted from the sale price. It is a different number from the listing price and from the equity figure a lender quotes. This one is built for Iowa: it computes the state's revenue stamps exactly, uses the Des Moines metro's typical commission and concession levels, and, if you give an address, pulls the county's assessed value and last recorded sale for your parcel, so the starting number is a public record.
What does it cost to sell a house in Iowa?
Typically 994% of the sale price before you pay off the mortgage: commission is the largest line, then seller concessions, closing costs (title, abstract update, attorney, recording), Iowa revenue stamps, staging and photography, and the repairs an inspection finds. Carrying costs add roughly $1,950 a month — mortgage, taxes and insurance — for every month the house sits.
What are Iowa revenue stamps?
Iowa's real estate transfer tax, paid by the seller at closing: $1.60 for every $1,000 of the price above the first $500, rounded up in $500 steps. On a $300,000 sale that's $479; on $335,000 it's $535. It's small next to commission, and it's the line most estimates leave out.
How do I estimate net proceeds from a home sale without talking to an agent?
Start from what homes in your city have actually sold for — the city pages on this site show the median and the middle half of recorded sales for Ankeny, Des Moines, West Des Moines, Johnston, Urbandale and the rest of Polk County over the last twelve months — then run the ledger with your own payoff and a realistic months-on-market. Nothing on the page is sent anywhere unless you choose to send it.
What's a house worth in the Des Moines metro right now?
It depends on the city more than the metro: over the last twelve months the median recorded sale was $335,000 in Ankeny and $227,500 in Des Moines, and the middle half of sales in each city spans well over a hundred thousand dollars. The FHFA index for the metro, shown above, gives the year-over-year trend; the city pages give the distribution. Neither is a forecast, and this site doesn't make one.
From the wire · selling in Iowa this month
Google News · “Iowa home sellers housing market” · refreshed hourly
  1. Are homes selling in Dubuque in 2026?Eastern Progress · 5d ago
  2. California’s obscene housing market exposed by two $10M home listingsnypost.com · 14d ago
  3. Median Home Price By State: How Much Do Houses Cost?Forbes · 14d ago
  4. Data center worker influx strains Cedar Rapids housing marketKCRG · 29d ago
  5. Iowa home sales drop 16% from June to JulyRadio Iowa · a month ago
By city

What sells for what, city by city.

Each city page starts from that city's recorded sales — median, the middle half, the busiest month — and presets the ledger to the median so you can subtract from a real number.

Median recorded sale and price per square foot, last twelve months · Polk County Assessor

When the number is one you'd take

One agent. Your ledger first.

Talk to a listing agent →

One who works your part of the metro and sees your numbers before the first conversation, so it starts with the price.