Red hot real estate driving up house prices in Bettendorf, Quad-Cities

DAVENPORT & BETTENDORF, Iowa (KWQC) - Tom Barnes is flabbergasted that his Davenport home is suddenly worth $23,000 more than last year.

“Yeah, this was a fairly good jump,” he said.

Barnes is among tens of thousands of Scott County residents surprised to see their home assessments spike this spring.

The explanation?

An exploding real estate market. Realtors and city and county assessors said they’ve rarely seen a market so hot.

Inventory is low, so with fewer homes to purchase, buyers are willing to pay top dollar to get the right house.

Kendra Mulcahy, a Realtor for Ruhl & Ruhl, said the market’s been a jungle.

“The big picture is we’re still sitting in a seller’s market,” she said.

According to real estate data from last week:

Homes in the Quad-Cities are selling for 99% of the asking price.

The average sales price is $243,000 in the Iowa Quad Cities and $168,000 on the Illinois side.

Bettendorf homes are the most expensive, with an average sale price of $345,000. That’s $154 a square foot.

The market is just as tight outside the metro. Allen Nylin recently sold his home and an investment property in Blue Grass in a matter of days.

“And when both of them are sold back to back. You can imagine my wife looking at me and saying, now what?” he said while smiling.

With closing approaching, he’s having trouble finding a new home. He made an offer on one house $5,000 over the asking price and still didn’t get it.

Nyline and his wife are still looking.

Back in Bettendorf, about 100 homes are being added every year and developers can’t build fast enough to keep up with demand.

“The past couple of years, we were dealing kind of with a shortage of supplies,” Mulcahy said. “Now we’re dealing with a shortage of workers. So that’s where the builders are struggling and not being able to build to the capacity that they’re able to.”

But as values continue to climb, homeowners like Barnes worry about rising taxes. It might simply become too expensive to justify staying in his house.

“I do plan to sell in the next few years,” he said.

Mulcahy has advice for sellers to consider.

“If you have a house that’s priced well, and it shows well, you’re seeing a significant amount of traffic, potentially multiple offers. Yeah, heartbroken buyers, which is the sad part. But excited sellers.”