Climax, Minnesota.
Typical home $216,476 (+5.5% in a year). Grand Forks, ND-MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$558 (+97%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,275 +5%
- $205,201$216,476 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $37,717 +21%
- $178,759$216,476 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.
- Climax$1,136
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Climax, MN rose 5.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Climax, Polk County, Minnesota
Climax is a city of 243 people in Polk County. Half its households earn more than $50,500 a year and half less, against $73,107 across Polk County. Unemployment in Polk County was 5.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Polk County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Climax is a very small city in Polk County, in the flat farm country of northwestern Minnesota. Household incomes in town run below the county's, and homes here are valued modestly. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm in July; precipitation through the year, rain and melted snow together, is moderate.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing and in the building trades. Across Polk County, some of the largest workplaces are the Diocese of Crookston, New Flyer of America and American Crystal Sugar Company East Grand Forks. The typical commute is a moderate one, and jobs across the county have slipped slightly over the past year.
Things to do. The Sand Hill River runs in or beside town, and the Marsh River, another river, is a short drive away. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area of restored prairie and wetland, and to the Alerus Center, a large stadium used for sports and events.
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- 80households
- 20 mintypical commute
What people in Polk County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Polk County had 12,003 jobs in 2025, 0.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 18° and lows near 1°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 61°. About 22 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Hillsboro North weather station, 17 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Polk County
- Diocese of CrookstonChurches537
- New Flyer of AmericaAssembly plants, heavy trucks, and buses on chassis of own manufacture419
- American Crystal Sugar Company East Grand ForksGranulated beet sugar manufacturing408
- Polk CountyCounty supervisors' and executives' offices386
- American Crystal Sugar Company CrookstonGranulated beet sugar manufacturing320
- East Grand Forks Public SchoolsSchool district298FTE
- University of Minnesota-CrookstonUniversity or college288
- Riverview Healthcare AssociationCritical access hospital280FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 53 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,576 people in all across the county; Climax has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), colleges from IPEDS (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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Climax’s 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 Polk County and the Grand Forks, ND-MN metro.
Climax home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Climax$216,476
- 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.
Zip codes with a Climax address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Climax — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.