Atwater, Minnesota.
Typical home $284,167 (+2.7% in a year). Willmar, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$812 (+120%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,431 +3%
- $276,736$284,167 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $58,561 +26%
- $225,606$284,167 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.
- Atwater$1,492
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Atwater, MN rose 2.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Atwater, Kandiyohi County, Minnesota
Atwater is a city of 1,124 people in Kandiyohi County. 80% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 20% are rented. Unemployment in Kandiyohi County was 5.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% more 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Atwater is a small city in Kandiyohi County, a place where most homes are lived in by their owners and the pace is that of a small town. Typical home values and household incomes sit below what a larger town would see, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than across much of the country. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and nights that reach the freezing point and below, while summers are warm and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, the building trades, and farming also employing many. Across Kandiyohi County, the largest workplaces include Jennie-O Turkey Store, the Willmar Public School District and Carris Health. The typical commute is a moderate one, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. Water is close at hand: Pay Lake and Summit Lake are in or beside town, and Peterson Lake and Diamond Lake are a short drive away. Sibley State Park, a protected area, is a longer drive away. For something quirky, the biggest ball of twine, a well-known tourist attraction, is also a longer drive.
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- 422households
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kandiyohi County had 23,281 jobs in 2025, 0.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 20° and lows near 0°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 60°. About 30 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Litchfield weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kandiyohi County
- Jennie-O Turkey StoreTurkeys, processing, fresh, frozen, canned, or cooked1,131
- Willmar Public School DistrictSchool district684FTE
- Carris HealthGeneral hospital619FTE
- DuininckPavement, highway, road, street, bridge or airport runway, construction613
- BethesdaNursing homes485
- Jennie-O Turkey StoreTurkey production484
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters381
- CentraCare Willmar ClinicOther ambulatory health care services321
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 101 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,536 people in all across the county; Atwater 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 windRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Atwater’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Kandiyohi County and the Willmar, MN metro.
Atwater home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Atwater$284,167
- Minnesota$348,778
- 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.
- Atwater9
Zip codes with a Atwater address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Atwater — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.