Waterville, Minnesota.
Typical home $319,527 (+1.5% in a year). Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$951 (+131%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,592 +1%
- $314,936$319,527 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $68,567 +27%
- $250,960$319,527 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.
- Waterville$1,677
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Waterville, MN rose 1.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Waterville, Le Sueur County, Minnesota
Waterville is a city of 1,750 people in Le Sueur County. Half its households earn more than $76,406 a year and half less, against $94,968 across Le Sueur County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 76% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 24% are rented. Unemployment in Le Sueur County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 2.4% fewer 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Waterville is a small city in Le Sueur County, Minnesota, where most homes are lived in by their owners. Household incomes run below the county's, and typical home values sit well above what the local incomes might suggest. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and a good deal of snow falls each year; summers are warm, with July the warmest month, and rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops and professional and business services. Very few people work from home, and most commutes take a moderate amount of time rather than a short hop. Across Le Sueur County, some of the largest workplaces are Cambria Plant, Seneca Foods and Agropur Inc. - Le Sueur Cheese, and unemployment in the county has risen over the past year.
Things to do. Sakatah Lake State Park, a protected area, lies in or beside town. A short drive away are Toners Lake and Remund Lake, both lakes, and the Little Cannon River. For a longer outing, the Waseca County Historical Society Museum is a longer drive away.
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- 889households
- 19%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Le Sueur County had 8,456 jobs in 2025, 2.4% fewer 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 81° and lows near 61°. About 52 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Waseca South Rsch & Outreach Ctr weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Le Sueur County
- Cambria PlantCountertops, stone, manufacturing539
- Le SueurFoundries, die-casting, aluminum296
- Seneca FoodsJuices, fruit or vegetable, fresh, manufacturing287
- Agropur Inc. - Le Sueur CheeseCheese, natural, manufacturing272
- Tri-city United School DistrictSchool district257FTE
- Le Sueur CountyExecutive offices, federal, state, and local246
- Dessert Holdings, LLC- Le Center FacilityDesserts, frozen bakery, manufacturing211
- Mayo Clinic Health SYS - New PragueCritical access hospital201FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 33 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,623 people in all across the county; Waterville has one 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
- Strong windVery high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Waterville’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 Le Sueur County and the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro.
Waterville home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Waterville$319,527
- 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 Waterville 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.
- Waterville35.28%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Waterville23
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Waterville6
Zip codes with a Waterville address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Waterville — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.