Bern, Kansas.
Typical home $257,332 (+10.2% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$865 (+178%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $23,863 +10%
- $233,469$257,332 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $83,389 +48%
- $173,943$257,332 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.
- Bern$1,351
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Bern, KS rose 10.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Bern, Nemaha County, Kansas
Bern is a city of 161 people in Nemaha County. Half its households earn more than $62,500 a year and half less, against $77,348 across Nemaha County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 88% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 12% are rented. Unemployment in Nemaha County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Nemaha County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Bern is a very small city in Nemaha County, Kansas, where almost everyone lives in a home they own. Household incomes here run below the county's, and typical home values sit at a level that older homeowners will find worth a look. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, farming and shops close behind. Across Nemaha County, some of the largest workplaces are Koch and Co, a cabinet and wood manufacturer, Apostolic Christian Home, which runs group homes with nursing care, and Prairie Hills Schools, a school district. Unemployment in the county is about where it was a year ago, and few residents work from home.
Things to do. The Delaware River is a short drive away, and a longer drive brings you to Indian Cave State Park, a protected area. Also a longer drive away is the Itha T. Krumme Memorial Arboretum, a botanical garden.
Report a mistake
- 5%below the poverty line
- 3%work from home
What people in Nemaha County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Nemaha County had 5,766 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 66°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Pawnee City weather station, 14 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Nemaha County
- Koch and CoCabinets, wood, manufacturing285
- Apostolic Christian HomeGroup homes for the disabled with nursing care190
- Prairie Hills SchoolsSchool district148FTE
- Nemaha Central SchoolsSchool district138FTE
- Alphia - BernPet food, dog and cat, manufacturing136
- Wenger Manufacturing, Inc. - 714 Main StFood choppers, grinders, mixers, and slicers manufacturing136
- Nemaha Valley Community HospitalCritical access hospital117FTE
- Koch and CoCabinets, wood, manufacturing114
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 21 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,763 people in all across the county; Bern 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
- TornadoesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bern’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Nemaha County.
Bern home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bern$257,332
- Kansas$246,055
- 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.
Zip codes with a Bern address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bern — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.