Odin, Minnesota.
Typical home $253,057 (+4.7% in a year). Fairmont, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$868 (+189%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,245 +5%
- $241,812$253,057 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $82,360 +48%
- $170,698$253,057 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.
- Odin$1,328
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Odin, MN rose 4.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Odin, Watonwan County, Minnesota
Odin is a city of 123 people in Watonwan County. 98% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 2% are rented. Unemployment in Watonwan County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Watonwan 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Odin is a very small city in Watonwan County, Minnesota, with far fewer residents than most towns people think of as small. Nearly everyone who lives here owns their home, and homes sell for more than the typical Minnesota household income would suggest in some other parts of the state. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers turn warm in July, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in the building trades and in shops. Across Watonwan County, some of the largest employers are Smithfield Foods, a processed meats manufacturer, the St. James Public School District and Madelia Health, a critical access hospital. Very few adults hold a four-year degree, many people work outside town, and commutes run longer than a short hop across town.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Kansas Lake and Cedar Lake are both a short drive away, which makes them easy places to fish or sit by the water. The Mountain Lake Site, an archaeological site, is also a short drive from town. Fox Lake is a longer drive for those willing to go farther afield.
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- 5%of adults have a degree
- 27 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What people in Watonwan County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Watonwan County had 4,490 jobs in 2025, 0.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 24° and lows near 5°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 62°. About 50 inches of snow and 33 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the St. James Wwtp weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Watonwan County
- Smithfield FoodsProcessed meats manufacturing611
- St. James Public School DistrictSchool district157FTE
- Madelia HealthCritical access hospital136FTE
- Madelia Public School DistrictSchool district90FTE
- The Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society - St. JamesSkilled nursing facilities84
- Mayo Clinic Health SYS - St. JamesCritical access hospital81FTE
- Watonwan County Courthouse & Resource CenterExecutive and legislative office combinations76
- City of St. JamesGeneral public administration75
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 15 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,466 people in all across the county; Odin has none 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
- Strong windVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Odin’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 Watonwan County and the Fairmont, MN metro.
Odin home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Odin$253,057
- Minnesota$348,778
- 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 Odin address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Odin — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.