Clarks, Nebraska.
Typical home $310,439 (+5.4% in a year). Grand Island, NE metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$995 (+157%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,878 +5%
- $294,561$310,439 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $99,829 +47%
- $210,610$310,439 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.
- Clarks$1,629
- 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 Clarks, NE rose 5.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Clarks, Merrick County, Nebraska
Clarks is a village of 344 people in Merrick County. 87% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 13% are rented. Unemployment in Merrick County was 2.2% in August 2026, and the county had 4.2% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Clarks is a small village in Merrick County, home to very few people, and nearly everyone lives in a house they own. Homes here cost more than you might expect for a place this size, while incomes across the county sit below the national picture and a good share of residents live below the poverty line. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and winters are cold and snowy, with warm summers and a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, the building trades and shops close behind. Across Merrick County, some of the largest workplaces are Central City Public Schools, Merrick Medical Center and Green Plains Central City. The county has fewer jobs than a year earlier, though unemployment there has held steady, and a typical commute is a modest drive, with a small number working from home.
Things to do. Morning Star Lake is in or beside town, and it is the closest place to spend an afternoon by the water. A longer drive away, the Loup River offers a river setting, and The Plainsman Museum is one of the museums worth the trip. The State Theatre is also a longer drive away for an evening out.
Report a mistake
- 148households
- 12%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Merrick County had 2,349 jobs in 2025, 4.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 63°. About 29 inches of snow and 28 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Central City weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Merrick County
- Central City Public SchoolsSchool district132FTE
- Interconnection SystemsSolar farms115
- Merrick Medical CenterCritical access hospital105FTE
- Green Plains Central CityManufacture of fuel ethanol64
- Palmer Public SchoolsSchool district52FTE
- PFG Manufacturing Preferred Popcorn Chapman44
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 223 people in all across the county; Clarks has none 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
- Winter weatherRelatively 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 Clarks’ 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 Merrick County and the Grand Island, NE metro.
Clarks home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Clarks$310,439
- 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 Clarks address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Clarks — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.