Owatonna, Minnesota.
Typical home $295,050 (+1.7% in a year), asking rent $1,081 . Owatonna, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$839 (+118%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,026 +2%
- $290,024$295,050 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $53,701 +22%
- $241,349$295,050 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.
- Owatonna$1,549
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Owatonna, MN rose 1.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Owatonna, Steele County, Minnesota
Owatonna is a city of 26,420 people in Steele County. Half its households earn more than $80,750 a year and half less, against $84,196 across Steele County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 76% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 24% are rented. Unemployment in Owatonna was 5.6% in August 2026, and Steele County had 1.1% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Owatonna is a small city in Steele County, Minnesota, where most homes are lived in by their owners and a good many residents have a four-year degree. Household incomes sit a little below the county's, and typical home values and rents are in the middle range for a Minnesota town of its size. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and plenty of snow, and summers turn warm in July.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops, and banks, insurance and property. Among the biggest workplaces in town are Federated Mutual Insurance, the glass maker Viracon and the Owatonna Public School District. Commutes are short, and only a small share of people work from home.
Things to do. Lake Kohlmeier is a lake in or beside town, and the Minnesota State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children, a museum, is also in or beside town. A short drive away is Rice Lake State Park, a protected area with room to walk and watch wildlife. Nerstrand Big Woods State Park, another protected area, is a longer drive away.
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- 11,018households
- 29%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Steele County had 19,168 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 22° and lows near 5°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 62°. About 44 inches of snow and 35 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Owatonna weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Owatonna
- Federated Mutual InsuranceInsurance carriers, property and casualty, direct1,846
- ViraconFlat glass manufacturing922
- Federated Mutual InsuranceInsurance carriers, property and casualty, direct757
- Owatonna Public School DistrictSchool district695FTE
- Wenger Corp - OWAInstitutional furniture manufacturing482
- AmesburyTruthAppliance hardware, metal, manufacturing354
- Steele CountyGeneral services departments, government251
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters240
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 51 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 8,004 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
- Strong windVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of OwatonnaRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Owatonna’s 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 Steele County and the Owatonna, MN metro.
Owatonna home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Owatonna$295,050
- 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 3 Owatonna listings, and the typical home goes pending in 28 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Owatonna31.65%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Owatonna28
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Owatonna133
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Owatonna43
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Owatonna$283,040
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Owatonna99.85%
Zip codes with a Owatonna address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Owatonna — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.