Kensington, Minnesota.
Typical home $277,717 (+5.1% in a year). Alexandria, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$753 (+107%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,466 +5%
- $264,251$277,717 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $52,943 +24%
- $224,774$277,717 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.
- Kensington$1,458
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Kensington, MN rose 5.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Kensington, Douglas County, Minnesota
Kensington is a city of 266 people in Douglas County. Half its households earn more than $46,000 a year and half less, against $79,043 across Douglas County; 16% of its people live below the poverty line. 78% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 22% are rented. Unemployment in Douglas County was 4.0% in August 2026, and the county had 1.0% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in manufacturing, 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Kensington is a very small city in Douglas County, Minnesota, where most homes are lived in by their owners. Incomes in town run well below the county's, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than you would find in most places. Winters are long and cold, with a good deal of snow, and summers are warm.
Work. People who live in Kensington work mostly in manufacturing, in shops, in transport and warehousing, and in schools, hospitals and social care. Some of the largest workplaces across Douglas County are Alomere Health, Douglas Machine and The Aagard Group. A small share of residents work from home, and unemployment across the county has risen a little over the past year.
Things to do. Water is the main draw here. Roland Lake and Eng Lake are in or beside town, and Mattson Lake is a short drive away. Each is a lake, and the area has many more of them close by for anyone who likes to fish, paddle or simply sit by the shore.
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- 8%of adults have a degree
- 16%below the poverty line
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Douglas County had 19,728 jobs in 2025, 1.0% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 23° and lows near 2°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 58°. About 46 inches of snow and 26 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Glenwood 2WNW weather station, 15 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Douglas County
- Alomere HealthGeneral hospital723FTE
- Douglas MachineBag opening, filling, and closing machines manufacturing715
- The Aagard GroupFood packaging machinery manufacturing687
- Alexandria Public School DistrictSchool district682FTE
- 3M Company380
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters369
- Central SpecialtiesRoad construction355
- Douglas CountyLegislative bodies338
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 72 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 8,682 people in all across the county; Kensington 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Kensington’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 Douglas County and the Alexandria, MN metro.
Kensington home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Kensington$277,717
- 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 Kensington address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Kensington — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.