Lake Elmo, Minnesota.
Typical home $643,791 (+3.4% in a year), asking rent $2,758 . Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,663 (+97%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $21,446 +3%
- $622,345$643,791 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $88,710 +16%
- $555,081$643,791 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.
- Lake Elmo$3,379
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 23 years.
Typical home values in Lake Elmo, MN rose 3.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Lake Elmo, Washington County, Minnesota
Lake Elmo is a city of 11,335 people in Washington County. Half its households earn more than $153,669 a year and half less, against $115,345 across Washington County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 94% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 6% are rented. Unemployment in Washington County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 1.1% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Lake Elmo is a city in Washington County, Minnesota, with a population that is mostly middle-aged. Nearly everyone owns the home they live in, and incomes run well above the county's, with few households living below the poverty line. Homes here are expensive, and so are rentals. Most adults hold a four-year degree, and winters are cold and snowy, with warm summers and a fair amount of rain and melted snow across the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, professional and business services, and banks, insurance and property. Among the largest workplaces in Lake Elmo are the Lake Elmo Inn and Event Center, Lake Elmo Elementary and Oak-Land Middle School. Commutes are of moderate length, and a good share of residents work from home. Across Washington County, jobs grew slightly over the past year, and unemployment has edged up since a year earlier.
Things to do. The Minnesota State Capitol, a museum a short drive away, is the closest of the well-known nearby places. A longer drive brings you to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, a museum, and to Target Field, a stadium. The Saint Croix River is also a longer drive away for time by the water.
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- 4,714households
- 62%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 37%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Washington County had 96,635 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 22° and lows near 5°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 62°. About 33 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Stillwater 2SW weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lake Elmo
- Lake Elmo Inn and Event CenterFullservice restaurants122
- ISD# 834-Lake Elmo ElementaryIndependent school district #834119
- ISD# 834-Oak-Land Middle SchoolIndependent school district #83496
- Retail Construction ServicesCommercial building construction general contractors75
- NpslSenior living communities71
- High Pointe Surgery CenterAmbulatory surgical centers and clinics, freestanding67
- City of Lake Elmo Fire StationFire departments)59
- HealthPartners, Inc.Offices of physicians, mental health specialists58
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 15 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 901 people in all. 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 windRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Lake Elmo’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Washington County and the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
Lake Elmo home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lake Elmo$643,791
- 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.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Lake Elmo listings, and the typical home goes pending in 29 days — the market is roughly in balance.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Lake Elmo21.58%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lake Elmo65
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Lake Elmo21
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Lake Elmo$683,005
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Lake Elmo address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lake Elmo — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.