Hector, Minnesota.
Typical home $211,750 (+8.0% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$655 (+144%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,716 +8%
- $196,034$211,750 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $53,274 +34%
- $158,475$211,750 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.
- Hector$1,111
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Hector, MN rose 8.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Hector, Renville County, Minnesota
Hector is a city of 1,012 people in Renville County. Half its households earn more than $63,362 a year and half less, against $70,625 across Renville County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 74% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 26% are rented. Unemployment in Renville County was 5.4% in August 2026, and the county had 2.0% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Hector is a small city in Renville County where most homes are lived in by their owners, and a typical home costs less than in many parts of the country. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and the building trades also common. Across Renville County, some of the largest workplaces are the Southern Minnesota Beet sugar cooperative, Renville County itself and Olivia Hospital and Clinics. The typical trip to work is short, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. Several lakes lie a short drive away, including Lake Allie and Phare Lake, which suit anyone who likes time by the water. A longer drive brings you to Fort Ridgely, a historic fort, and to Fort Ridgely State Park, a protected area nearby. The biggest ball of twine, a well-known roadside attraction, is also a longer drive away.
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- 490households
- 12%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 16 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Renville County had 5,595 jobs in 2025, 2.0% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 21° and lows near 2°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 59°. About 38 inches of snow and 28 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Olivia 3E weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Renville County
- Southern Minnesota Beet sugar cooperativeRaw beet sugar manufacturing505
- Renville CountyExecutive and legislative office combinations224
- HealthPartners, Inc.General medical and surgical hospitals137
- RCW KK-12 education109
- Transystems LLC - Renville ProjectAgricultural products trucking, local106
- Olivia Hospital and ClinicsCritical access hospital103FTE
- Bird Island-olivia-lake Lillian SchoolsSchool district88FTE
- Buffalo Lake Healthcare CenterSkilled nursing facility85
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 19 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,745 people in all across the county; Hector has two 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
- Strong windVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Hector’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 Renville County.
Hector home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Hector$211,750
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
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.
- Hector11
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Hector address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Hector — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.