Iron, Minnesota.
Typical home $212,992 (+4.6% in a year). Duluth, MN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$636 (+132%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,381 +5%
- $203,611$212,992 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $53,112 +33%
- $159,880$212,992 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.
- Iron$1,118
- 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 Iron, MN rose 4.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Iron, St. Louis County, Minnesota
The Census does not count Iron on its own, so the figures here are St. Louis County's. Half the county's households earn more than $70,069 a year and half less; 13% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 71% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 29% are rented. Unemployment in St. Louis County was 5.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in St. Louis County work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Iron is a small town in St. Louis County, Minnesota, where most homes are lived in by their owners rather than rented. Across the county, the Census does not count Iron on its own, so the figures describe the wider area. Winters are colder than in most of the country, with January the coldest month and July the warmest, and there is a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, with professional and business services also employing people. Unemployment across St. Louis County has risen over the past year, and the number of jobs has dipped slightly. A commute is usually short, and few people work from home.
Things to do. Anchor Lake is a lake a short drive away, good for a quiet afternoon by the water. Mesaba Co-op Park, also a short drive away, is a park for walking and time outdoors. The Minnesota Discovery Center is a museum a longer drive away, worth the trip for a day out.
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- 87,115households
- 41.2median age
- 34%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What people in St. Louis County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. St. Louis County had 95,078 jobs in 2025, 0.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 16° and lows near -2°; warmest in July, with highs near 77° and lows near 56°. About 28 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Eveleth Wwtp weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in St. Louis County
- St. Lukes Hospital of DuluthGeneral hospital2,059FTE
- St. Marys Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,859FTE
- Smdc Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,607FTE
- University of Minnesota-DuluthUniversity or college1,539
- Duluth Public School DistrictSchool district1,287FTE
- St. Louis CountyGeneral government815
- Essentia HealthMedical office management services746
- Range Regional Health ServicesGeneral hospital692FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 343 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 41,741 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- LightningVery high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across St. Louis County, 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 St. Louis County and the Duluth, MN-WI metro.
Iron home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Iron$212,992
- 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 Iron address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Iron — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.