Clear Lake, Minnesota.
Typical home $418,469 (+3.8% in a year). Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,140 (+108%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,448 +4%
- $403,021$418,469 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $67,522 +19%
- $350,947$418,469 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.
- Clear Lake$2,196
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Clear Lake, MN rose 3.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Clear Lake, Sherburne County, Minnesota
Clear Lake is a city of 641 people in Sherburne County. Unemployment in Sherburne County was 4.8% in August 2026, and the county had 1.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Sherburne County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 24 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Clear Lake is a very small city in Sherburne County, with a young population for the area and homes that cost more than most of the country. Incomes in the county run well above the national picture, and few residents live below the poverty line. Winters are long and cold, with plenty of snow, and summers are warm.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and the building trades close behind. Many people commute a fair distance, and a good number work from home. Among the largest workplaces across Sherburne County are Elk River Public School District, Community Living Options and Walmart.
Things to do. Rice Creek and the Clearwater River run in or beside town, and Nixon Lake is a short drive away. Lake Maria State Park, a protected area, is also a short drive away. For a longer outing, Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge is a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 19%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 29 mintypical commute
- 23%work from home
What people in Sherburne County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Sherburne County had 28,584 jobs in 2025, 1.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 21° and lows near 3°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 59°. About 48 inches of snow and 28 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the St. Cloud Regional Airport weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sherburne County
- Elk River Public School DistrictSchool district1,601FTE
- Community Living OptionsIdd multi-service508
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters475
- Sherburne County Government Center - GeneralGeneral services departments, government459
- Big Lake Public School DistrictSchool district400FTE
- Minnesota Department of Corrections - St. CloudCorrectional institutions389
- Becker Public School DistrictSchool district364FTE
- Sportech Inc B2All-terrain vehicles, wheeled or tracked, manufacturing345
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 122 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 12,960 people in all across the county; Clear Lake has one of its own. School districts come 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Clear Lake’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Sherburne County and the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
Clear Lake home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Clear Lake$418,469
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Clear Lake listings — 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.
- Clear Lake30.93%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Clear Lake32
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Clear Lake8
Zip codes with a Clear Lake address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Clear Lake — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.