Cortland, Nebraska.
Typical home $315,800 (+0.9% in a year). Beatrice, NE metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$898 (+118%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,706 +1%
- $313,094$315,800 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $64,957 +26%
- $250,843$315,800 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.
- Cortland$1,658
- Nebraska$1,461
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Cortland, NE rose 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Cortland, Gage County, Nebraska
Cortland is a village of 504 people in Gage County. Half its households earn more than $74,583 a year and half less, against $67,247 across Gage County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 87% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 13% are rented. Unemployment in Gage County was 2.5% in August 2026, and the county had 1.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Gage 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Cortland is a small village in Gage County, Nebraska, where nearly all homes are lived in by their owners. Household incomes run above the county's, and poverty is low. Winters are cold, with a good deal of snow, and summers turn warm.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with many others in manufacturing, shops and the building trades. Across Gage County, some of the largest workplaces are Exmark Manufacturing Co, Beatrice Community Hospital and Landmark Snacks. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and some people work from home, while the typical commute is a fairly long one.
Things to do. Salt Creek, a river, and Stagecoach State Recreation Area, a protected area, are both a short drive away. The Norris Forest School Arboretum, a botanical garden, is also close by. For a longer outing, Homestead National Historical Park is a longer drive away.
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- 207households
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What people in Gage County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Gage County had 8,780 jobs in 2025, 1.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 34° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 65°. About 25 inches of snow and 31 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Crete 4ESE weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Gage County
- Exmark Manufacturing CoLawn and garden equipment manufacturing425
- Beatrice Community HospitalCritical access hospital374FTE
- Landmark SnacksProcessed meats manufacturing290
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters273
- Beatrice Public SchoolsSchool district261FTE
- Neapco ComponetsAssembly line rebuilding of automotive, truck, and bus transmissions223
- Mosaic BeatriceIntellectual and developmental disability intermediate care facilities172
- Good Samaritan Society - BeatriceNursing homes128
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 20 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,306 people in all across the county; Cortland has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- HailVery high
- Strong windVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- LightningVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Cortland’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 Gage County and the Beatrice, NE metro.
Cortland home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Cortland$315,800
- Nebraska$278,299
- 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.
- Cortland5
Zip codes with a Cortland address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Cortland — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.