Vernon Center, Minnesota.
Typical home $249,973 (+4.1% in a year). Mankato, MN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$727 (+124%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,936 +4%
- $240,036$249,973 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $62,062 +33%
- $187,911$249,973 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.
- Vernon Center$1,312
- 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 Vernon Center, MN rose 4.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Vernon Center, Blue Earth County, Minnesota
Vernon Center is a city of 328 people in Blue Earth County. 84% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 16% are rented. Unemployment in Blue Earth County was 4.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Vernon Center is a very small town, where most people know their neighbors and nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Fewer households live below the poverty line than you might expect, and homes here cost less than in many parts of the country. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and plenty of snow, while July is warm and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, transport and warehousing, and manufacturing also giving people jobs. Across Blue Earth County, some of the largest workplaces are the Mchs - Southwest Minnesota Region hospital, Minnesota State University-Mankato and the Mankato Public School District. Commutes are fairly long, since many people travel to jobs outside town, and a small number work from home.
Things to do. Water is the main draw nearby. Mills Lake and Lura Lake are lakes a short drive away, and the Watonwan River is also a short drive from town. For a longer outing, Minneopa State Park is a protected area a longer drive away.
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- 138households
- 20%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Blue Earth County had 41,483 jobs in 2025, 0.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 26° and lows near 8°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 63°. About 46 inches of snow and 33 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Amboy weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Blue Earth County
- Mchs - Southwest Minnesota RegionGeneral hospital1,692FTE
- Minnesota State University-MankatoUniversity or college1,619
- MRCI Energy DriveVocational rehabilitation or habilitation services1,269
- Mankato Public School DistrictSchool district942FTE
- WalmartRefrigerated warehousing and storage552
- Rolls Royce Solutions America Inc. Power Drive MankatoMotor generator sets manufacturing474
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores432
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters386
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 122 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 14,761 people in all across the county; Vernon Center has none 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
- Strong windVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Vernon Center’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 Blue Earth County and the Mankato, MN metro.
Vernon Center home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Vernon Center$249,973
- 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.
Zip codes with a Vernon Center address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Vernon Center — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.