Nelson, Missouri.
Typical home $305,916 (+9.1% in a year). Marshall, MO metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$437 (+37%) since Dec 2023.
- 1 year
- Up $25,542 +9%
- $280,374$305,916 since Sep 2025
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.
- Nelson$1,606
- Missouri$1,393
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Nelson, MO rose 9.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Nelson, Saline County, Missouri
Nelson is a city of 152 people in Saline County. Unemployment in Saline County was 4.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Saline County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Nelson is a very small Missouri city in Saline County, one of the smaller places in the county. Homes here are valued well above what the county's lower household incomes might suggest. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and some snow each year, while summers turn hot by July, and rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and in shops. Across Saline County, some of the largest workplaces are Conagra Brands, Cargill Protein and Marshall Schools. Job numbers across the county slipped slightly last year, and few adults in town hold a four-year degree.
Things to do. The Blackwater River and Brush Creek are both a short drive away, with quiet water to fish or walk beside. A longer drive leads to Fort Orleans, the site of an early fort, and to Arrow Rock State Historic Site, a protected area that preserves a piece of the state's frontier past.
Report a mistake
- 6%of adults have a degree
What people in Saline County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Saline County had 8,832 jobs in 2025, 0.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 37° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 67°. About 8 inches of snow and 42 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Marshall weather station, 14 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Saline County
- Conagra BrandsFrozen specialty food manufacturing775
- Cargill ProteinMeats, cured or smoked, made from purchased carcasses623
- Marshall SchoolsSchool district379FTE
- Filtration Slater IGFGIndustrial and comemerical fan blower and air purification equipment manufacturing350
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters294
- Missouri Valley CollegeUniversity or college278
- John Fitzgibbon Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital258FTE
- Coreslab StructuresPrestressed concrete products manufacturing180
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 17 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,027 people in all across the county; Nelson 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Nelson’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 Saline County and the Marshall, MO metro.
Nelson home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Nelson$305,916
- Missouri$265,387
- 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.
Zip codes with a Nelson address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Nelson — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.