Drake, North Dakota.
Typical home $87,931 (-1.0% in a year). Minot, ND metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$29 (+7%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Down $855 -1%
- $88,786$87,931 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.
- Drake$462
- North Dakota$1,526
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Drake, ND fell 1.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Drake, McHenry County, North Dakota
Drake is a city of 292 people in McHenry County. 77% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 23% are rented. Unemployment in McHenry County was 2.9% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in McHenry County work in farming, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Drake is a very small city in McHenry County, North Dakota, and most homes here are lived in by their owners. Typical home values are low, and a larger share of residents live below the poverty line than is usual across the country. Winters are long and hard, with January the coldest month and temperatures well below freezing, while summers turn warm by August. Precipitation is modest, falling as rain and melted snow across the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in farming, forestry and mining, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in transport, warehouses and utilities. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and a good number work from home. Across McHenry County, the largest workplaces include Souris Valley Care Center, Archer Daniels Midland Company and Velva 1 Schools. Unemployment in the county is low and has held steady over the past year, and the county has added a few jobs.
Things to do. Open country and wildlife areas lie within a longer drive of town. The Sheyenne River is the best known of them, and Cottonwood Lake National Wildlife Refuge and Wintering River National Wildlife Refuge are protected areas set aside for birds and other wildlife. Each is a longer drive away, so a visit is best planned as a day out.
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- 158households
- 15%of adults have a degree
- 21%below the poverty line
- 16%work from home
What people in McHenry County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. McHenry County had 1,311 jobs in 2025, 1.0% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 17° and lows near -3°; warmest in August, with highs near 81° and lows near 54°. About 18 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Drake Northeast weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in McHenry County
- Souris Valley Care CenterGroup homes for the disabled with nursing care78
- Archer Daniels Midland Company75
- Velva 1 SchoolsSchool district68FTE
- TGU 60 SchoolsSchool district61FTE
- Anamoose 14 SchoolsSchool district20FTE
- Drake 57 SchoolsSchool district20FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 153 people in all across the county; Drake has one of its own. School districts come 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
- Ice stormsVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Drake’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 McHenry County and the Minot, ND metro.
Drake home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Drake$87,931
- 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 Drake address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Drake — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.