Albert Lea, Minnesota.
Typical home $180,520 (+4.6% in a year), asking rent $1,043 . Albert Lea, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$509 (+116%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,861 +5%
- $172,659$180,520 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $35,656 +25%
- $144,864$180,520 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.
- Albert Lea$948
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Albert Lea, MN rose 4.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Albert Lea, Freeborn County, Minnesota
Albert Lea is a city of 18,492 people in Freeborn County. Half its households earn more than $64,603 a year and half less, against $71,023 across Freeborn County; 13% of its people live below the poverty line. 74% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 26% are rented. Unemployment in Freeborn County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 2.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Albert Lea is a small city where residents are older than in many American towns, and most households own the home they live in. Incomes run below the county's, and a good number of residents live on tight budgets, yet typical home values and rents are modest. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers turn warm, and a fair amount of rain and melted snow falls over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels close behind. Among the largest workplaces in Albert Lea are Albert LEA, the hospital, the Albert LEA Public School District, and Cargill, which makes processed meats. Unemployment across Freeborn County has risen over the past year and there are fewer jobs than before, and most people have a short drive to work.
Things to do. Pickerel Lake sits in or beside town, and the Bessesen Building, a theatre, is nearby as well. A short drive away is Myre-Big Island State Park, a protected area for walking and time outdoors. For a longer outing, the Spam Museum is a longer drive away.
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- 7,788households
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Freeborn County had 11,723 jobs in 2025, 2.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 22° and lows near 6°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 62°. About 40 inches of snow and 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Albert Lea 3SE weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Albert Lea
- Albert LEAGeneral medical and surgical hospitals561
- Albert LEA Public School DistrictSchool district480FTE
- CargillProcessed meats manufacturing299
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters264
- St John's Lutheran CommunityNursing homes206
- Good Samaritan Society Albert LeaHomes for the elderly with nursing care194
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores193
- City of Albert LeaGeneral public administration184
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 33 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,415 people in all. School districts come 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
- TornadoesVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Hailrelatively high in parts of Albert LeaRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Albert Lea’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 Freeborn County and the Albert Lea, MN metro.
Albert Lea home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Albert Lea$180,520
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Albert Lea listings, and the typical home goes pending in 32 days — the market is roughly in balance.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Albert Lea22.88%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Albert Lea32
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Albert Lea120
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Albert Lea32
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Albert Lea$173,498
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Albert Lea97.73%
Zip codes with a Albert Lea address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Albert Lea — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.