Kiester, Minnesota.
Typical home $106,849 (+1.9% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$365 (+186%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,961 +2%
- $104,888$106,849 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $38,933 +57%
- $67,916$106,849 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.
- Kiester$561
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 8 years.
Typical home values in Kiester, MN rose 1.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Kiester, Faribault County, Minnesota
Kiester is a city of 488 people in Faribault County. Half its households earn more than $52,727 a year and half less, against $66,815 across Faribault County; 22% of its people live below the poverty line. 84% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 16% are rented. Unemployment in Faribault County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 1.8% fewer 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Kiester is a very small city in Faribault County, in the farm country of southern Minnesota. Residents are somewhat older than in many towns, and nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Incomes run below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than you might expect in a place this size. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest. Precipitation is steady through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, shops, the building trades, and in schools, hospitals and social care. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and the typical trip to work is a fairly long one, so many people travel out of town for their jobs. Across Faribault County, the largest workplaces include Wells Concrete Products Company, United Hospital District and Brakebush Wells. Unemployment in the county has edged up over the past year, and the county has fewer jobs than it did a year earlier.
Things to do. Brush Creek is a river a short drive away, and it is the closest place for time by the water. A longer drive brings you to Rice Lake State Park and Pilot Knob State Park, both protected areas with room to walk and look at the countryside. Pickerel Lake, also a longer drive, is a lake that suits an afternoon outdoors in the warmer months.
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- 230households
- 10%of adults have a degree
- 22%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Faribault County had 4,468 jobs in 2025, 1.8% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 24° and lows near 5°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 62°. About 40 inches of snow and 35 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wells weather station, 15 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Faribault County
- Wells Concrete Products CompanyPrecast concrete products manufacturing229
- United Hospital DistrictCritical access hospital175FTE
- USC ElementaryK-12 education160
- Blue Earth Area School DistrictSchool district157FTE
- United South Central SchoolsSchool district127FTE
- Brakebush WellsPoultry manufacturing123
- St Lukes Lutheran Care Center122
- City of Blue EarthExecutive offices, federal, state, and local89
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 17 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,602 people in all across the county; Kiester has none 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Kiester’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 Faribault County.
Kiester home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Kiester$106,849
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Kiester8
Zip codes with a Kiester address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Kiester — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.