Backus, Minnesota.
Typical home $284,557 (+2.6% in a year). Brainerd, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$915 (+158%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,320 +3%
- $277,236$284,557 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $73,990 +35%
- $210,567$284,557 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.
- Backus$1,494
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Backus, MN rose 2.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Backus, Cass County, Minnesota
Backus is a city of 263 people in Cass County. Unemployment in Cass County was 5.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Cass County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Backus is a very small city in Cass County, Minnesota, in lake and forest country, with a population among the smallest of any place most people would think to look up. Winters are long and hard, with January highs well below freezing and lows around zero, while summers are warm, with July the warmest month. A typical home here is worth more than many buyers elsewhere in the state might guess, and a good share of residents live below the poverty line.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, or in the building trades. Across Cass County, some of the largest workplaces are Trident Seafoods, Cass County itself and Madden's On Gull Lake. Jobs in the county slipped slightly last year, and unemployment there is higher than it was a year earlier. Fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many places, the usual drive to work is moderate, and only a small share work from home.
Things to do. The Pine River runs in or beside town, which makes water and shoreline easy to reach. A short drive away are Badoura State Forest, a protected area of woods, and Norway Lake, a reservoir. Ponto Lake, also a short drive off, is another place to get out on the water, and Leech Lake is a larger lake a longer drive away.
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- 112households
- 15%of adults have a degree
- 18%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What people in Cass County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cass County had 10,595 jobs in 2025, 0.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 19° and lows near 0°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 59°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Deep Portage weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Cass County
- Trident SeafoodsSeafood and seafood products manufacturing340
- Cass CountyExecutive and legislative office combinations294
- Madden's On Gull LakeAutomobile courts, lodging278
- Cass Lake-bena Public SchoolsSchool district241FTE
- Cass Lake Indian HospitalCritical access hospital238FTE
- ElemK-12 education164
- DW Jones ManagementOther154
- Indian Health ServiceFederal government · Department of Health and Human Services154
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 25 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,396 people in all across the county; Backus has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Backus’ 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 Cass County and the Brainerd, MN metro.
Backus home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Backus$284,557
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Backus listings — 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.
- Backus30.00%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Backus24
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Backus9
Zip codes with a Backus address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Backus — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.