Motley, Minnesota.
Typical home $259,906 (+4.3% in a year). Brainerd, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$786 (+136%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $10,827 +4%
- $249,078$259,906 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $62,858 +32%
- $197,048$259,906 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.
- Motley$1,364
- 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 Motley, MN rose 4.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Motley, Cass County, Minnesota
Motley is a city of 680 people in Cass County. 64% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 36% are rented. Unemployment in Cass County was 5.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Cass County work in schools and health care, 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Motley is a very small city in Cass County, Minnesota, with a population that fits the scale of a place where neighbors tend to know one another. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and typical home values sit in a modest range for a rural Minnesota community. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and temperatures that dip below zero at night, while July is warm and the year brings a moderate amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and in the building trades. Few adults have a four-year degree, and incomes and the rate of people below the poverty line are the kind often seen in small northern towns. Across Cass County, the largest workplaces include Trident Seafoods, Cass County itself and Madden's On Gull Lake, though unemployment there has risen over the past year and the number of jobs has slipped slightly.
Things to do. The Long Prairie River runs in or beside town, and Shamineau Lake and Lake Alexander are both a short drive away for time on the water. Farther afield, Crow Wing State Park is a longer drive and is known as an archaeological site as well as a place to walk and look around.
Report a mistake
- 308households
- 10%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What people in Cass County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cass County had 10,595 jobs in 2025, 0.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 18° and lows near -1°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 61°. About 27 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Gull Lake Dam weather station, 14 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Cass County
- Trident SeafoodsSeafood and seafood products manufacturing340
- Cass CountyExecutive and legislative office combinations294
- Madden's On Gull LakeAutomobile courts, lodging278
- Cass Lake-bena Public SchoolsSchool district241FTE
- Cass Lake Indian HospitalCritical access hospital238FTE
- ElemK-12 education164
- DW Jones ManagementOther154
- Indian Health ServiceFederal government · Department of Health and Human Services154
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 25 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,396 people in all across the county; Motley has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- LightningVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Motley’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 Cass County and the Brainerd, MN metro.
Motley home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Motley$259,906
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 6 Motley 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.
- Motley17.83%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Motley22
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Motley8
Zip codes with a Motley address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Motley — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.