Oakes, North Dakota.
Typical home $190,616 (+14.2% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$426 (+74%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $23,742 +14%
- $166,874$190,616 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $21,387 +13%
- $169,229$190,616 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.
- Oakes$1,000
- North Dakota$1,526
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 29 years.
Typical home values in Oakes, ND rose 14.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Oakes, Dickey County, North Dakota
Oakes is a city of 1,798 people in Dickey County. 77% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 23% are rented. Unemployment in Dickey County was 1.0% in August 2026, and the county had 26.1% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Oakes is a small city in Dickey County, North Dakota, where most homes are lived in by their owners and the typical home value sits at a modest level. Residents are about as old as the typical American, and a four-year degree is less common here than across the country. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and lows around the freezing mark of zero, while July brings warm days.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, restaurants and hotels, and farming also providing jobs. Among the largest workplaces in Oakes are Harris Machine Company, a metal fabricating firm, along with CHIOakes Hospital and the local school district. Unemployment in the county is very low and lower than a year ago, and the county has gained jobs over the past year.
Things to do. Nature lovers can head to Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge or Dakota Lake National Wildlife Refuge, both protected areas a longer drive away. Fort Ransom State Park is another protected area a longer drive away, and the Lisbon Opera House, a theatre, offers an evening out at a similar distance.
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- 768households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Dickey County had 2,496 jobs in 2025, 26.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 19° and lows near 0°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 58°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Oakes weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Oakes
- Harris Machine CompanyPlate work, fabricated metal, manufacturing90
- GSS Oaks Nursing CareNursing homes67
- CHIOakes HospitalHospitals, general medical and surgical62
- Oakes 41 SchoolsSchool district60FTE
- Oakes Community HospitalCritical access hospital23FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 219 people in all. 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 wavesVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Oakes’ 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 Dickey County.
Oakes home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Oakes$190,616
- North Dakota$290,657
- 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.
Zip codes with a Oakes address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Oakes — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.