Mountain Lake, Minnesota.
Typical home $166,246 (-1.7% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$475 (+119%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $2,946 -2%
- $169,192$166,246 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $30,310 +22%
- $135,936$166,246 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.
- Mountain Lake$873
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Mountain Lake, MN fell 1.7% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Mountain Lake, Cottonwood County, Minnesota
Mountain Lake is a city of 1,999 people in Cottonwood County. Half its households earn more than $66,490 a year and half less, against $72,941 across Cottonwood County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 72% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 28% are rented. Unemployment in Cottonwood County was 5.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% fewer 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Mountain Lake is a small city in Cottonwood County, Minnesota, with a population that is among the smaller ones in the county. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and typical home values are modest. Household incomes run below the county's, and a good share of residents live below the poverty line. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and a good deal of snow falls each year. Summers are warm, with July the warmest month, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, farming and shops also employing many. Across Cottonwood County, some of the largest workplaces are the Toro Main Plant, the Windom Public School District and Windom Area Hospital. The commute is short, and some people work from home. Unemployment across the county has risen over the past year, and the county has seen slightly fewer jobs than a year earlier.
Things to do. Bingham Lake, Rat Lake and Clear Lake are all lakes a short drive away, good for time on the water or along the shore. The Mountain Lake Site, an archaeological site, is also a short drive away. For a longer outing, Kilen Woods State Park is a protected area a longer drive away.
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- 753households
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 14 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cottonwood County had 4,821 jobs in 2025, 0.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 25° and lows near 8°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 63°. About 44 inches of snow and 32 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Windom weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Cottonwood County
- Toro Main PlantGarden machinery and equipment, powered, manufacturing447
- Windom Public School DistrictSchool district198FTE
- Windom Area HospitalCritical access hospital136FTE
- Westbrook-walnut Grove SchoolsSchool district110FTE
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores98
- Mountain Lake Public SchoolsSchool district93FTE
- District WideK-12 education72
- Fast Ag Solutions, WindomSprayers and dusters, farm-type, manufacturing68
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 34 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,380 people in all across the county; Mountain Lake has two of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (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 wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Mountain Lake’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 Cottonwood County.
Mountain Lake home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Mountain Lake$166,246
- 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.
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.
- Mountain Lake17
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Mountain Lake6
Zip codes with a Mountain Lake address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Mountain Lake — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Mountain Lake
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 56159 | Mountain Lake | 2,668 | — | $160,144 |
| 56120 | Butterfield | 983 | — | $193,343 |