Dexter, Minnesota.
Typical home $289,849 (+3.8% in a year). Austin, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$799 (+111%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $10,705 +4%
- $279,143$289,849 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $47,138 +19%
- $242,710$289,849 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.
- Dexter$1,521
- 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 Dexter, MN rose 3.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Dexter, Mower County, Minnesota
Dexter is a city of 324 people in Mower County. Unemployment in Mower County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Mower 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Dexter is a very small city in Mower County, in the far southeast of Minnesota. Fewer adults here hold a four-year degree than is typical across the country, and a noticeable part of the community lives below the poverty line. A typical home is valued well below what many older homeowners elsewhere would expect, and winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month and July pleasantly warm.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in shops and in the building trades. Across Mower County, the largest workplaces include Hormel Foods Austin, a processed meats manufacturer, the Mayo Clinic Health System hospital in Austin, and the Austin Public School District. Unemployment across the county has risen a little over the past year, and the number of jobs has barely changed. Most people commute a fair distance to work, and very few work from home.
Things to do. For a day out, the Spam Museum is one of the best known stops nearby, and it is a longer drive away. Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park is a protected area, also a longer drive away, and suits anyone who likes a walk outdoors. Lake Louise State Park is another protected area a longer drive away, and the Chateau Theatre is a theatre reached by a longer drive as well.
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- 151households
- 14%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What people in Mower County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Mower County had 16,974 jobs in 2025, 0.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 21° and lows near 5°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 59°. About 51 inches of snow and 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Grand Meadow weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Mower County
- Hormel Foods AustinProcessed meats manufacturing1,871
- Mayo Clnic Hlth Sys-albrt LEA AustinGeneral hospital1,393FTE
- Austin Public School DistrictSchool district738FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters308
- Riverland Community CollegeTwo-year college248
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores204
- North America Packaging SolutionsContainer168
- Hormel InstituteAcademies, college or university153
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 47 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,873 people in all across the county; Dexter has none 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Dexter’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 Mower County and the Austin, MN metro.
Dexter home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Dexter$289,849
- 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 Dexter address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Dexter — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.