Ormsby, Minnesota.
Typical home $299,028 (+5.0% in a year). Fairmont, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$946 (+152%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $14,229 +5%
- $284,799$299,028 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $83,997 +39%
- $215,031$299,028 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.
- Ormsby$1,570
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Ormsby, MN rose 5.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ormsby, Watonwan County, Minnesota
Ormsby is a city of 118 people in Watonwan County. 93% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 7% 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 Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ormsby is a very small city in Watonwan County, in south-central Minnesota, and most of its homes are lived in by their owners, more so than across the country. Winters are colder than in most of the country and bring a good deal of snow, while summers are warm. A community this size tends to be close-knit, with neighbors who know one another.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in the building trades, or in local shops. Unemployment in the county has edged up over the past year, and jobs have slipped slightly over the same period. Fewer people work from home here than across the country, so daily work mostly takes place away from home.
Things to do. Kansas Lake is a short drive away, and Fox Lake is a longer drive away, both good options for time spent by the water. For a night out, the Grand Opera House, a theatre, is also a short drive away.
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- 6%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 8%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; Ormsby 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
- HailVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ormsby’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.
Ormsby home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ormsby$299,028
- 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 Ormsby address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ormsby — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.