Orono, Minnesota.
Typical home $1,146,798 (+6.4% in a year). Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$3,441 (+133%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $69,355 +6%
- $1,077,443$1,146,798 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $267,556 +30%
- $879,242$1,146,798 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.
- Orono$6,019
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Orono, MN rose 6.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Orono, Hennepin County, Minnesota
Orono is a city of 8,315 people in Hennepin County. Half its households earn more than $173,527 a year and half less, against $97,653 across Hennepin County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 91% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 9% are rented. Unemployment in Hennepin County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in professional services, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Orono is a city on the shore of Lake Minnetonka in Hennepin County, home to a population on the older side, with more homeowners than across the county. Nearly everyone lives in a home they own, and incomes run well above the county's, with comparatively few households living in poverty. A large majority of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers are warm, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in professional and business services, in schools, hospitals and social care, in banks, insurance and property, and in manufacturing. Within the town itself, some of the largest workplaces are the Orono Public School District, the City of Orono and First Student. Many people work from home, and the typical commute for everyone else is moderate. Unemployment across Hennepin County has risen a little over the past year, and the number of jobs there has been close to flat.
Things to do. Lake Minnetonka lies in or beside town, so the water is the natural place to start. A longer drive brings the Minneapolis Institute of Art, a museum, and the Walker Art Center, another museum. Saint Anthony Falls, a waterfall on the Mississippi, is also a longer drive away.
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- 3,052households
- 72%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 32%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Hennepin County had 919,062 jobs in 2025, 0.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 22° and lows near 6°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 62°. About 55 inches of snow and 33 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Chanhassen Wsfo weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Orono
- Orono Public School DistrictSchool district342FTE
- City Of OronoCity and town managers' offices69
- First Student38
- Otten Brothers Nursery & LandscapingFarm supply stores33
- KCB HoldingsGrain elevators merchant wholesalers grain25
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,011 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); 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
- HailRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Orono’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Hennepin County and the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
Orono home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Orono$1,146,798
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Orono listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Orono25.47%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Orono58
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Orono13
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Orono address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Orono — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.