Clara City, Minnesota.
Typical home $256,256 (+7.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$780 (+138%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,745 +7%
- $238,511$256,256 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $61,502 +32%
- $194,753$256,256 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.
- Clara City$1,345
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Clara City, MN rose 7.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Clara City, Chippewa County, Minnesota
Clara City is a city of 1,423 people in Chippewa County. Half its households earn more than $63,636 a year and half less, against $71,458 across Chippewa County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 66% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 34% are rented. Unemployment in Chippewa County was 5.3% in August 2026, and the county had 2.9% fewer 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Clara City is a small city in Chippewa County, Minnesota, where most homes are lived in by their owners. Incomes run a little below the county's, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and a good deal of snow, while July brings warm summer days and the year is moderately wet.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, the building trades and shops close behind. Many people have a short drive to work, and very few work from home. Across Chippewa County, some of the largest workplaces are Jennie-O Turkey Store, CCM Health and the Montevideo Public School District, though jobs were slightly fewer last year than the year before.
Things to do. The Chippewa River is the best known place nearby, a longer drive away, and Upper Sioux Agency State Park, an archaeological site, is also a longer drive away. Swensson Farm Museum is another museum to visit, again a longer drive away. Most outings from town mean a bit of a trip.
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- 564households
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 15 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Chippewa County had 5,136 jobs in 2025, 2.9% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 24° and lows near 3°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 60°. About 52 inches of snow and 29 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Granite Falls weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Chippewa County
- Jennie-O Turkey StoreTurkeys, processing, fresh, frozen, canned, or cooked309
- CCM HealthCritical access hospital250FTE
- Montevideo Public School DistrictSchool district239FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters200
- American Surplus & MfgManufacturing building construction155
- Cavco Industries321991154
- MACCRAY School DistrictSchool district134FTE
- Chippewa CountyExecutive offices, federal, state, and local128
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 25 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,374 people in all across the county; Clara City has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Clara City’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 Chippewa County.
Clara City home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Clara City$256,256
- 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.
- Clara City6
Zip codes with a Clara City address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Clara City — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.