Brainerd, Minnesota.
Typical home $312,858 (+3.3% in a year), asking rent $1,011 . Brainerd, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$936 (+133%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $10,094 +3%
- $302,764$312,858 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $66,454 +27%
- $246,403$312,858 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.
- Brainerd$1,642
- 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 Brainerd, MN rose 3.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Brainerd, Crow Wing County, Minnesota
Brainerd is a city of 14,395 people in Crow Wing County. Half its households earn more than $56,111 a year and half less, against $72,589 across Crow Wing County; 15% of its people live below the poverty line. 56% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 44% are rented. Unemployment in Crow Wing County was 4.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Brainerd is a small city in north-central Minnesota, with a population younger than in many towns of its size. Incomes run below the county's, and more households are renters than across much of the surrounding county. Winters are long, cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm days and a fair amount of rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by shops, manufacturing, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Among the largest workplaces in Brainerd are St. Josephs Medical Center, the Brainerd Public School District and Crow Wing County. Most people have a fairly short drive to work, and only a small share work from home.
Things to do. Bane Park and the Northland Arboretum, a botanical garden, are in or beside town, handy for a walk or an afternoon outdoors. A short drive away are Brainerd International Raceway, a race track, and the Crow Wing River. Mille Lacs Lake is a longer drive away for a day on a larger lake.
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- 6,348households
- 20%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Crow Wing County had 31,145 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 20° and lows near -2°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 58°. About 48 inches of snow and 31 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Brainerd weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Brainerd
- St. Josephs Medical CenterGeneral hospital964FTE
- Brainerd Public School DistrictSchool district915FTE
- Crow Wing CountyExecutive offices, federal, state, and local579
- Essentiah HealthFamily physicians' offices326
- Central Lakes College-BrainerdTwo-year college278
- Anderson Brothers ConstructionHighway construction210
- City of BrainerdGeneral public administration188
- Minnesota Department of Human Services - BrainerdMedical assistance programs administration, government157
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 27 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,836 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of BrainerdRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Brainerd’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 Crow Wing County and the Brainerd, MN metro.
Brainerd home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Brainerd$312,858
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Brainerd listings, and the typical home goes pending in 31 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.
- Brainerd29.68%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Brainerd31
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Brainerd143
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Brainerd40
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Brainerd$275,587
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Brainerd99.15%
Zip codes with a Brainerd address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Brainerd — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.