Colfax, North Dakota.
Typical home $405,180 (+1.5% in a year). Wahpeton, ND-MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$224 (+12%) since Dec 2023.
- 1 year
- Up $6,109 +2%
- $399,071$405,180 since Sep 2025
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.
- Colfax$2,127
- North Dakota$1,526
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Colfax, ND rose 1.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Colfax, Richland County, North Dakota
Colfax is a city of 172 people in Richland County. 97% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 3% are rented. Unemployment in Richland County was 2.3% in August 2026, and the county had 1.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Richland County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Colfax is a very small city in Richland County, North Dakota, where almost everyone lives in a home they own. Poverty is not recorded here, and household incomes across the county are relatively comfortable. Winters are long and cold, with January the coldest month and highs staying below freezing, while summers turn properly warm in July. Rain and melted snow add up to a modest amount over the year.
Work. People who live in Colfax work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, farming and shops also employing many. A fair number work from home. Across Richland County, some of the largest workplaces are Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative, which makes sugar from sugar beets, North Dakota State College of Science, and ContiTech USA. Unemployment in the county is low, though the number of jobs there dipped slightly last year.
Things to do. Fort Abercrombie, a historic fort, is a short drive away, as is Whisky Creek, a small river. A longer drive brings you to the Sheyenne National Grassland, a protected area of open prairie, and to the Red River Zoo.
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- 0%below the poverty line
- 11%work from home
What people in Richland County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Richland County had 7,877 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 19° and lows near -1°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 60°. About 24 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Mc Leod East weather station, 18 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Richland County
- Minn-Dak Farmers CooperativeSugar, granulated, made from sugar beets500
- North Dakota State College of ScienceTwo-year college452
- CDI ServicesNozzles, aerosol spray, plastics, manufacturing305
- ContiTech USARubber goods, mechanical, manufacturing230
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters207
- Wahpeton 37 SchoolsSchool district165FTE
- Wahpeton Cargill Corn MillingSyrup, corn, made by wet milling130
- BenedictineSkilled nursing facilities116
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 22 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,259 people in all across the county; Colfax has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Colfax’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Richland County and the Wahpeton, ND-MN metro.
Colfax home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Colfax$405,180
- North Dakota$290,657
- 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 Colfax address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Colfax — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.