Silver Bay, Minnesota.
Typical home $165,798 (+0.7% in a year). Duluth, MN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$508 (+141%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,092 +1%
- $164,706$165,798 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $37,717 +29%
- $128,081$165,798 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.
- Silver Bay$870
- 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 Silver Bay, MN rose 0.7% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Silver Bay, Lake County, Minnesota
Silver Bay is a city of 1,857 people in Lake County. Half its households earn more than $69,489 a year and half less, against $75,541 across Lake County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 80% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 20% are rented. Unemployment in Lake County was 4.3% in August 2026, and the county had 2.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Lake County work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Silver Bay is a small city in Lake County, Minnesota, and its residents are older than in most American towns. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and incomes run a little below the county's. Winters are long, cold and very snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers are mild and July is the warmest.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with restaurants, hotels and entertainment, shops and the building trades also employing a good number. Among the larger workplaces in town are the Minnesota Veterans Home Silver Bay, the City of Silver Bay and North Shore Federal Credit Union. Fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many places, the typical commute is short, and a share of residents work from home.
Things to do. The Beaver River runs in or beside town, and the Hesper archaeological site is also close by. A short drive away are Split Rock Lighthouse State Park and Tettegouche State Park, both protected areas, along with the Baptism River. For a longer outing, Gooseberry Falls State Park is a longer drive away.
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- 869households
- 22%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What people in Lake County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lake County had 4,000 jobs in 2025, 2.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 19° and lows near 1°; warmest in July, with highs near 76° and lows near 54°. About 94 inches of snow and 33 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wolf Ridge Elc weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Silver Bay
- MN Veterans Home Silver BaySkilled nursing facilities125
- City of Silver BayCity and town managers' offices32
- North Shore Federal Credit UnionFederal credit unions29
- Oxford CapitolAssisted-living facilities with on-site nursing facilities24
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 4 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 210 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
- Strong windVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- LightningVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Silver Bay’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 Lake County and the Duluth, MN-WI metro.
Silver Bay home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Silver Bay$165,798
- 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 Silver Bay 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.
- Silver Bay27.50%
- United States26.36%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Silver Bay20
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Silver Bay address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Silver Bay — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.