Brainard, Nebraska.
Typical home $273,605 (+5.7% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$869 (+153%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $14,821 +6%
- $258,784$273,605 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $86,509 +46%
- $187,095$273,605 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.
- Brainard$1,436
- Nebraska$1,461
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Brainard, NE rose 5.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Brainard, Butler County, Nebraska
Brainard is a village of 336 people in Butler County. Half its households earn more than $68,750 a year and half less, against $79,268 across Butler County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Butler County was 2.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then construction.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Brainard is a small village in Butler County, Nebraska, where most people know one another by sight. Household incomes run below the county's, and typical home values sit well within reach of what many families earn. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers turn properly hot by July, with a fair amount of rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, the building trades, restaurants and hotels, and manufacturing. Across Butler County, some of the largest workplaces are Timpte DC Manufacturing, which builds truck trailers, St Josephs Villa, a skilled nursing facility, and David City Public Schools. Commutes are fairly short, and few people work from home.
Things to do. The nearest well-known places are a longer drive away, mostly toward Lincoln. Lake Wanahoo offers water and open space for a day outdoors, and Memorial Stadium is the stadium best known to Nebraskans. For something quieter, the Sheldon Museum of Art and the University of Nebraska State Museum are both worth the trip.
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- 154households
- 24%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Butler County had 2,644 jobs in 2025, 0.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 64°. About 32 inches of snow and 30 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the David City weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Butler County
- Timpte DC ManufacturingTruck trailer manufacturing583
- A-Lert Construction Services - David CityIndustrial building construction, general contractors150
- St Josephs VillaSkilled nursing facilities140
- David City Public SchoolsSchool district136FTE
- Butler County Health Care CenterCritical access hospital116FTE
- Tuls Dairy- Butler CountyMilk production, dairy cattle89
- East Butler Public SchoolsSchool district80FTE
- Summit Calf RanchCattle farming or ranching65
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,103 people in all across the county; Brainard 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
- HailVery high
- Strong windVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Brainard’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 Butler County.
Brainard home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Brainard$273,605
- Nebraska$278,299
- 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 Brainard address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Brainard — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.