Rothsay, Minnesota.
Typical home $251,115 (+4.8% in a year). Wahpeton, ND-MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$704 (+114%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,459 +5%
- $239,656$251,115 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $48,209 +24%
- $202,906$251,115 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.
- Rothsay$1,318
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Rothsay, MN rose 4.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Rothsay, Wilkin County, Minnesota
Rothsay is a city of 498 people in Wilkin County. Half its households earn more than $86,250 a year and half less, against $71,410 across Wilkin County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 86% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 14% are rented. Unemployment in Wilkin County was 4.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Rothsay is a very small city, home to fewer people than most towns, and nearly everyone in it owns the house they live in. Household incomes run higher than across Wilkin County as a whole, and fewer residents live below the poverty line than you might expect in a small farm-country town. Winters are long, cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm days and the year is only moderately wet.
Work. Residents most often work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops and government. Across Wilkin County, the largest workplaces include the Breckenridge Public School District, Minn-Kota Ag Products, a grain wholesaler, and St. Francis Medical Center, a critical access hospital. The commute is a fairly ordinary one, and only a small number of people work from home.
Things to do. Lake Oscar is the closest of the nearby places, a short drive away, and a handy spot for time on the water. A longer drive brings you to Pelican Lake, and to Maplewood State Park, a protected area of woods and lakes for walking and quiet days out. Fort Abercrombie, a historic fort, is also a longer drive away.
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- 176households
- 28%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Wilkin County had 1,649 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 18° and lows near -1°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 60°. About 50 inches of snow and 25 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Rothsay weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Wilkin County
- CommonSpirit HealthGeneral medical and surgical hospitals160
- Breckenridge Public School DistrictSchool district111FTE
- Minn-Kota Ag ProductsGrain elevators merchant wholesalers grain91
- St. Francis Medical CenterCritical access hospital85FTE
- ISDK-12 education55
- CampbellDairy cattle farming53
- Welcome Home Management Twin Town VillaAssisted living53
- RDO Equipment CompanyCommercial and industrial machinery repair and maintenance49
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 517 people in all across the county; Rothsay 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 wavesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Tornadoesrelatively high in parts of RothsayRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Rothsay’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 Wilkin County and the Wahpeton, ND-MN metro.
Rothsay home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Rothsay$251,115
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Rothsay address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Rothsay — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.