Ottertail, Minnesota.
Typical home $366,926 (+4.9% in a year). Fergus Falls, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,108 (+136%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,187 +5%
- $349,739$366,926 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $81,568 +29%
- $285,358$366,926 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.
- Ottertail$1,926
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Ottertail, MN rose 4.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ottertail, Otter Tail County, Minnesota
Ottertail is a city of 629 people in Otter Tail County. 90% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 10% are rented. Unemployment in Otter Tail County was 4.8% in August 2026, and the county had 1.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ottertail is a small city in Otter Tail County, Minnesota, with a population that is small even by the standards of Minnesota towns. It is an older community, and nearly everyone who lives here owns their home, far more than is typical across the country. Winters are long and cold, with January the coldest month and temperatures dipping below zero at night, while summers turn pleasantly warm, with July the warmest month. Rain and melted snow add up to a moderate amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in professional and business services, manufacturing and wholesale. Several of the town's larger workplaces are hands-on trades, including Carr's Tree Service, Hilltop Lumber Ottertail and Precision Landscape & Irrigation. Many people commute a fair way to work, and a good number work from home. Across Otter Tail County, unemployment has risen over the past year and the number of jobs has slipped a little.
Things to do. Water is the draw here. Buchanan Lake and Portage Lake lie in or beside town, and Otter Tail Lake and Gourd Lake are a short drive away. Glendalough State Park, also a short drive off, offers protected woods and shoreline for walking and time outdoors.
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- 224households
- 31%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 29 mintypical commute
- 20%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Otter Tail County had 22,581 jobs in 2025, 1.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 17° and lows near -2°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 60°. About 28 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Ottertail weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ottertail
- Carrs Tree ServiceTree and brush trimming, overhead utility line126
- Hilltop Lumber OttertailHome improvement centers43
- Precision Landscape & IrrigationSeasonal property maintenance services29
- Mechanical Systems Inc OttertailIndustrial process piping installation22
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 4 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 220 people in all. 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
- Inland floodingVery high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ottertail’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 Otter Tail County and the Fergus Falls, MN metro.
Ottertail home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ottertail$366,926
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Ottertail 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.
- Ottertail22.66%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Ottertail35
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Ottertail6
Zip codes with a Ottertail address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ottertail — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.