Garrison, Minnesota.
Typical home $270,240 (+3.0% in a year). Brainerd, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$784 (+124%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,904 +3%
- $262,336$270,240 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $61,759 +30%
- $208,481$270,240 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.
- Garrison$1,418
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Garrison, MN rose 3.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Garrison, Crow Wing County, Minnesota
Garrison is a city of 194 people in Crow Wing County. Unemployment in Crow Wing County was 4.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Crow Wing County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Garrison is a very small city on the shore country of Mille Lacs Lake, where neighbors are likely to know one another. Few adults here hold a four-year degree, and the typical home is valued well below what many buyers expect to pay in larger parts of the country. Winters are long and cold, with January highs staying below freezing, and a good deal of snow falls each year, while July is pleasantly warm.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in shops, manufacturing, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Crow Wing County, the largest workplaces include St. Josephs Medical Center, the Brainerd Public School District and Cuyuna Regional Medical Center. Unemployment across the county is higher than it was a year earlier, and the number of jobs there has barely changed.
Things to do. Mille Lacs Lake is a short drive away, and Borden Lake and the Kenney Lake Overlook are in or beside town. Mille Lacs Indian Museum, also a short drive off, is a place to learn about the region's history. For a longer outing, Mille Lacs Kathio State Park, an archaeological site, is a longer drive away.
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- 4%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
What people in Crow Wing County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Crow Wing County had 31,145 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 19° and lows near 0°; warmest in July, with highs near 78° and lows near 58°. About 43 inches of snow and 29 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Isle 12N weather station, 16 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Crow Wing County
- St. Josephs Medical CenterGeneral hospital964FTE
- Brainerd Public School DistrictSchool district915FTE
- Cuyuna Regional Medical CenterCritical access hospital834FTE
- Crow Wing CountyExecutive offices, federal, state, and local579
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters467
- MNDOT District 3Transportation departments, nonoperating454
- Essentiah HealthFamily physicians' offices326
- Central Lakes College-BrainerdTwo-year college278
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 90 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,399 people in all across the county; Garrison 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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Garrison’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 Crow Wing County and the Brainerd, MN metro.
Garrison home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Garrison$270,240
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Garrison listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Garrison22.27%
- United States25.56%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Garrison17
Zip codes with a Garrison address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Garrison — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.