Mentor, Minnesota.
Typical home $339,639 (+6.8% in a year). Grand Forks, ND-MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$953 (+115%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $21,767 +7%
- $317,873$339,639 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $79,127 +30%
- $260,512$339,639 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.
- Mentor$1,783
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Mentor, MN rose 6.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Mentor, Polk County, Minnesota
Mentor is a city of 104 people in Polk County. Unemployment in Polk County was 5.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Polk 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Mentor is a small city in Polk County in northwestern Minnesota, with a population so modest that its streets and houses sit quietly among open fields. Winters are colder than in most of the country, with snow that lasts for much of the season, and summers are warm enough for gardens and lake days. Rain and snowmelt arrive over the year, so the land stays green through the warm months. Most homes here are lived in by their owners, and neighbors tend to know one another well.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, which are among the main employers in the area. Shops, manufacturing plants and building trades also provide work for people who live here or in the surrounding county. Jobs are steady but few, so many people in this part of Minnesota have long commutes or work in the trades close to home. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and many people learn their work through hands-on training.
Things to do. Maple Lake lies in or beside town, so it is the easiest place to go for a walk or a afternoon by the water. Rydell National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area a short drive away, is a good spot for quiet walks and watching birds. Union Lake, also a short drive away, is another lake where people fish and spend time outdoors in the warmer months.
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- 7%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
What people in Polk County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Polk County had 12,003 jobs in 2025, 0.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 15° and lows near -3°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 58°. About 50 inches of snow and 24 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Red Lake Falls weather station, 14 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Polk County
- Diocese of CrookstonChurches537
- New Flyer of AmericaAssembly plants, heavy trucks, and buses on chassis of own manufacture419
- American Crystal Sugar Company East Grand ForksGranulated beet sugar manufacturing408
- Polk CountyCounty supervisors' and executives' offices386
- American Crystal Sugar Company CrookstonGranulated beet sugar manufacturing320
- East Grand Forks Public SchoolsSchool district298FTE
- University of Minnesota-CrookstonUniversity or college288
- Riverview Healthcare AssociationCritical access hospital280FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 53 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,576 people in all across the county; Mentor has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), colleges from IPEDS (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
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Mentor’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Polk County and the Grand Forks, ND-MN metro.
Mentor home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Mentor$339,639
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Mentor listings — 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.
- Mentor21.06%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Mentor21
Zip codes with a Mentor address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Mentor — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.