Hills, Minnesota.
Typical home $253,211 (+6.5% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$749 (+129%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,471 +7%
- $237,740$253,211 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $66,608 +36%
- $186,603$253,211 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.
- Hills$1,329
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Hills, MN rose 6.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Hills, Rock County, Minnesota
Hills is a city of 686 people in Rock County. Half its households earn more than $78,631 a year and half less, against $71,295 across Rock County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Rock County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 5.7% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Hills is a small city in the far southwestern corner of Minnesota, in Rock County. Household incomes here run above the county's, and homes are priced at a level that many owners would find manageable. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm summer days and a fair amount of rain through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and other services also employing many people. Across Rock County, the largest workplaces include the Luverne Public School District, Sanford Hospital Luverne and the Hills-Beaver Creek School District. Commutes tend to be a little long, which fits a small town where many jobs sit in nearby communities, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. The Rock River, Ash Creek and Elk Creek are all a short drive away, which suits anyone who likes time beside the water. A longer drive brings you to Blue Mounds State Park, a protected area of prairie and rock, and to the Great Plains Zoo. The Hinkly House Museum is also a longer drive away, for those who like local history.
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- 291households
- 22%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Rock County had 3,898 jobs in 2025, 5.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 25° and lows near 6°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 62°. About 35 inches of snow and 29 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Rock Rapids weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Rock County
- Luverne Public School DistrictSchool district179FTE
- Minnesota Veterans Home-LuverneSkilled nursing facilities151
- Sanford Hospital LuverneCritical access hospital147FTE
- Tuff Memorial HomeSkilled nursing facilities90
- Hills-beaver Creek School DistrictSchool district58FTE
- Lineage LogisticsCold storage warehouse51
- New Vision Coop-MagnoliaAnimal feed mills manufacturing28
- Rock River IndustriesAmbulance bodies manufacturing28
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 13 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 984 people in all across the county; Hills has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- HailRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Hills’ 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 Rock County.
Hills home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Hills$253,211
- 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 Hills address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Hills — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.