Columbus, Minnesota.
Typical home $483,495 (+3.2% in a year). Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,316 (+108%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,039 +3%
- $468,456$483,495 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $75,968 +19%
- $407,527$483,495 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.
- Columbus$2,538
- 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 Columbus, MN rose 3.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Columbus, Anoka County, Minnesota
Columbus is a city of 4,159 people in Anoka County. Half its households earn more than $123,194 a year and half less, against $101,869 across Anoka County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 89% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 11% are rented. Unemployment in Anoka County was 5.0% in August 2026, and the county had about as many jobs in 2025 as the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Columbus is a city in Anoka County, Minnesota, where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Household incomes run well above the county's, and fewer residents live below the poverty line than you might expect in a place this size. Winters are long and cold, with a good deal of snow, and summers turn warm in July.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and restaurants and hotels also employing many. In town, Running Aces Casino, Hotel and Racetrack, Davids Hydro Vac and Columbus Elementary School are among the largest workplaces. Commutes are fairly long, and a share of people work from home.
Things to do. The Sunrise River is a short drive away. For a day out, the Minneapolis Institute of Art is a museum and Saint Anthony Falls is a waterfall, both a longer drive away. Target Field, a stadium, is also a longer drive away.
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- 1,639households
- 29%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 29 mintypical commute
- 14%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Anoka County had 133,128 jobs in 2025, about as many as the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 22° and lows near 2°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 60°. About 44 inches of snow and 29 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Andover 1N weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Columbus
- Running Aces Casino, Hotel and RacetrackHotels, casino580
- Davids Hydro VacMine site preparation and related construction activities, construction contractors110
- Columbus Elementary SchoolElementary schools104
- North Pine AggregateHighway construction71
- Westmor Fluid SolutionsSkids, metal, manufacturing69
- Minnesota Utilities & ExcavatingExcavating, earthmoving, or land clearing contractors40
- Blake Drilling CompanyUtility line, construction29
- Century Fence Forest LakeFencing contractors24
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,070 people in all. 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
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Columbus’ 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 Anoka County and the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
Columbus home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Columbus$483,495
- 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.
- Columbus13
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Columbus5
Zip codes with a Columbus address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Columbus — 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.