Comfrey, Minnesota.
Typical home $280,169 (+11.3% in a year). New Ulm, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$879 (+148%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $28,500 +11%
- $251,669$280,169 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $90,320 +48%
- $189,850$280,169 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.
- Comfrey$1,471
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Comfrey, MN rose 11.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Comfrey, Brown County, Minnesota
Comfrey is a city of 392 people in Brown County. Unemployment in Brown County was 4.3% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Brown 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Comfrey is a very small city in Brown County, Minnesota, the kind of place where neighbors tend to know one another. Winters are long and cold, with a good deal of snow, and summers are warm. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and homes here cost less than in many parts of the country. A noticeable share of residents live below the poverty line.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, retail, and professional and business services also employing many. Across Brown County, some of the largest workplaces are NEW ULM Medical Center, Kraft Heinz Co. New Ulm, and the NEW ULM Public School District. The typical commute is moderate, and very few people work from home. Jobs across the county grew slightly last year, while unemployment there has risen a little compared with a year earlier.
Things to do. Altermatt Lake is a lake a short drive away, and Jeffers Petroglyphs, an archaeological site, is also a short drive away. For a longer outing, Flandrau State Park is a protected area a longer drive away, and Fort Ridgely, a fort, is another longer drive. With cold, snowy winters and warm summers, the outdoor places here are best suited to the milder months.
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- 165households
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 2%work from home
What people in Brown County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Brown County had 13,328 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 23° and lows near 4°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 60°. About 42 inches of snow and 30 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Springfield Northwest weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Brown County
- 3M Company669
- New ULM Medical CenterCritical access hospital414FTE
- Kraft Heinz Co. New UlmCheese manufacturing400
- New ULM Public School DistrictSchool district316FTE
- J&R Schugel TruckingGeneral freight trucking, long-distance, truckload282
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters223
- Oak Hills Living CenterNursing homes214
- Martin Luther CollegeUniversity or college212
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 65 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,929 people in all across the county; Comfrey has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Strong windVery high
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Comfrey’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 Brown County and the New Ulm, MN metro.
Comfrey home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Comfrey$280,169
- 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.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Comfrey address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Comfrey — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.