Clearwater, Minnesota.
Typical home $285,327 (+0.7% in a year). Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$781 (+109%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,021 +1%
- $283,306$285,327 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $44,098 +18%
- $241,229$285,327 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.
- Clearwater$1,498
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 21 years.
Typical home values in Clearwater, MN rose 0.7% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Clearwater, Wright County, Minnesota
Clearwater is a city of 1,922 people in Wright County. Half its households earn more than $91,346 a year and half less, against $107,209 across Wright County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 62% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 38% are rented. Unemployment in Wright County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Clearwater is a small city in Wright County, Minnesota, and a young one by the look of its residents, with a median age below what is typical for the country. Most homes are lived in by their owners, though there are more renters than in many towns this size. Household incomes sit below the county's, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many places.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with restaurants, hotels and entertainment, the building trades and manufacturing close behind. Commutes tend to run long, and few people work from home. Among the biggest workplaces across Wright County are St. Michael-Albertville Schools, Landscape Structures, which makes playground equipment, and MP Nexlevel, which lays underground cable.
Things to do. The Clearwater River runs in or beside town, and Nixon Lake and Lake Maria State Park are both a short drive away. A longer drive leads to Munsinger Gardens and Clemens Gardens, a botanical garden. Winters here are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm summer days.
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- 784households
- 25%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Wright County had 49,245 jobs in 2025, 1.0% 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, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Wright County
- MP NexlevelUnderground cable laying822
- St. Michael-Albertville SchoolsSchool district766FTE
- Landscape Structures - PLAYGymnasium and playground equipment, manufacturing732
- Dist OfficeK-12 education651
- Buffalo-Hanover-Montrose SchoolsSchool district639FTE
- Michels Utility Services Inc-MN-OstegoCompressor, metering and pumping station, gas and oil pipeline, construction545
- MasterBrand CabinetsManufacturer of kitchen and bath cabinetry521
- Monticello Public School DistrictSchool district468FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 202 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 23,524 people in all across the county; Clearwater has none 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
- HailRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively 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 Clearwater’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 Wright County and the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
Clearwater home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Clearwater$285,327
- 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.
- Clearwater10
Zip codes with a Clearwater address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Clearwater — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.