Tower, Minnesota.
Typical home $365,087 (+7.5% in a year). Duluth, MN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,117 (+140%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $25,547 +8%
- $339,541$365,087 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $94,642 +35%
- $270,445$365,087 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.
- Tower$1,916
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Tower, MN rose 7.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Tower, St. Louis County, Minnesota
Tower is a city of 430 people in St. Louis County. Half its households earn more than $65,893 a year and half less, against $70,069 across St. Louis County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. 83% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 17% are rented. Unemployment in St. Louis County was 5.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in St. Louis County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Tower is a very small city in northern Minnesota, and nearly everyone who lives there owns their home. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are long, cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are mild and pleasant at their warmest in July.
Work. Most residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with many others in shops, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and in professional and business services. Across St. Louis County, jobs have slipped slightly over the past year and unemployment is somewhat higher than it was a year earlier. Among the county's largest workplaces are St. Luke's Hospital of Duluth and the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
Things to do. Lake Vermilion is a lake a short drive away, and Lake Vermilion-Soudan Underground Mine State Park is a protected area in or beside town. Bear Head Lake State Park, also a protected area, is a short drive away, and the East Two River runs in or beside town.
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- 169households
- 13%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
What people in St. Louis County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. St. Louis County had 95,078 jobs in 2025, 0.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 17° and lows near -7°; warmest in July, with highs near 77° and lows near 51°. About 69 inches of snow and 28 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Tower 2S weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in St. Louis County
- St. Lukes Hospital of DuluthGeneral hospital2,059FTE
- St. Marys Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,859FTE
- Smdc Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,607FTE
- University of Minnesota-DuluthUniversity or college1,539
- Duluth Public School DistrictSchool district1,287FTE
- St. Louis CountyGeneral government815
- Essentia HealthMedical office management services746
- Range Regional Health ServicesGeneral hospital692FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 343 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 41,741 people in all across the county; Tower has two of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Tower’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 St. Louis County and the Duluth, MN-WI metro.
Tower home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Tower$365,087
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Tower 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.
- Tower22.96%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Tower31
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Tower9
Zip codes with a Tower address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Tower — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.