Clay Center, Nebraska.
Typical home $185,748 (+6.7% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$559 (+134%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,646 +7%
- $174,102$185,748 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $52,191 +39%
- $133,557$185,748 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.
- Clay Center$975
- Nebraska$1,461
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Clay Center, NE rose 6.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Clay Center, Clay County, Nebraska
Clay Center is a city of 735 people in Clay County. Half its households earn more than $82,500 a year and half less, against $78,986 across Clay County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 86% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 14% are rented. Unemployment in Clay County was 2.1% in August 2026, and the county had 2.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then farming.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Clay Center is a small city in south-central Nebraska, a farm-country community where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Household incomes run a little above the county's, and fewer people live in poverty than in many places. Winters are cold, with some snow, and summers turn warm, with a fair amount of rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and in farming, with manufacturing and government close behind. Across Clay County, some of the largest workplaces are South Central Nebraska Unified 5, the Agricultural Research Service and Sutton Public Schools. Few people work from home, and the typical trip to work is a short one.
Things to do. For a day out, the Hastings Museum and the Stuhr Museum are both museums a longer drive away, and The Plainsman Museum is another. The Lawrence Opera House, a theatre, is also a longer drive away, for an evening of live performance.
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- 322households
- 19%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Clay County had 2,036 jobs in 2025, 2.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 66°. About 18 inches of snow and 30 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Clay Ctr weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Clay County
- South Central Nebraska Unified 5School district145FTE
- Agricultural Research ServiceFederal government · Department of Agriculture83
- Sutton Public SchoolsSchool district70FTE
- Sutton Community HomeNursing homes66
- Harvard Public SchoolsSchool district57FTE
- R Lazy KCattle feedlots39
- George Brothers Propane & FertilizerAgricultural chemicals merchant wholesalers27
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 132 people in all across the county; Clay Center has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- LightningVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Ice stormsVery high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Clay Center’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Clay County.
Clay Center home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Clay Center$185,748
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Clay Center5
Zip codes with a Clay Center address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Clay Center — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.