Rental Property in Minnesota: What the Numbers Actually Look Like

Minnesota breaks the Midwest pattern twice.

First, it has the lowest effective property tax rate of the seven states in this set — 1.00% — which on the $375,000 statewide median produces a $3,750 bill. Second, it has an insurance market that behaves like a catastrophe state: $3,333 a year at $300,000 of dwelling coverage, and a single-year premium jump in 2025 that Insurify's series records as 34%, the largest of any state in the country.

Put those together on the median house and the two bills land within $417 of each other. Neither dominates. What they do jointly is push a $375,000 house — the most expensive median in this Midwest set — into a 3.70% cap rate and a -$714.21 monthly cash flow at 25% down.

There is also a Minnesota-specific line at closing that catches out-of-state investors: a Mortgage Registry Tax of 0.23% of the debt secured, paid by the borrower when the mortgage is recorded. Section 1 puts a dollar figure on it.

A note before you start: this is general educational information about how rental property arithmetic works in Minnesota. It is not investment, tax, insurance, or legal advice, and it is not a recommendation about any property. Minnesota property tax runs through a class-rate system administered by county assessors, and insurance is priced per structure. Talk to a Minnesota CPA about tax treatment, a licensed Minnesota insurance agent about a real quote, and a Minnesota real estate attorney about anything contractual.

1. What a rental costs to buy here

The statewide median sale price is $375,000 (Minnesota Realtors' MLS-based statewide report, July 2026, up 2.7% year over year; the Twin Cities metro median was separately $408,000, up 3.3%). Redfin's statewide figure for May 2026 was $361,715 — about 3.6% lower, consistent with normal methodology variance between an association MLS report and an algorithmic aggregation.

County medians and carrying costs:

• Hennepin County (Minneapolis): $395,000, effective property tax rate 1.17%, average insurance $2,467
• Ramsey County (St. Paul): $324,107, effective property tax rate 1.27%, average insurance $2,662

Note that both metro counties carry effective rates above the 1.00% statewide figure. That is normal — a statewide effective rate averages in rural counties — but it means the state number understates a Twin Cities underwrite by roughly 17% to 27%.

The cash you actually need

Minnesota charges on both the deed and the mortgage, and the two land on different parties:

• Deed Tax: 0.33% ($1.65 per $500 of net consideration), customarily paid by the seller. Hennepin and Ramsey counties add an Environmental Response Fund tax of 0.01%, for 0.34% there. On $375,000 that is $1,237.50 statewide, or $1,275 in the two metro counties.
• Mortgage Registry Tax: 0.23% of the principal debt secured (Minn. Stat. 287.035), paid by the mortgagor — the borrower — when the mortgage is recorded. Hennepin and Ramsey add the same 0.01% ERF surcharge, for 0.24%. This applies to a new mortgage, a HELOC, or a home equity loan. It is a buyer cost, it scales with the loan, and Minnesota is one of only a small handful of states that charges anything like it.
• Closing costs: 2% to 5%, with Rocket Mortgage data putting the Minnesota buyer average near 3.55%. This article uses a 3.5% midpoint.
• Closings are handled by licensed closing agents — title company employees or attorneys, under Minn. Stat. 507.45. Minnesota is not an attorney-required state, but it does license closing agents specifically.

On the $375,000 statewide median at 25% down:

• Down payment: $375,000 x 0.25 = $93,750
• Loan amount: $281,250
• Closing costs: $375,000 x 3.5% = $13,125
• Mortgage Registry Tax: $281,250 x 0.23% = $646.88 ($675 at 0.24% in Hennepin or Ramsey)
• Deed Tax: $0 to the buyer by custom
• Total cash in: $107,521.88

That is the largest entry cost in this Midwest set, and $646.88 of it is a tax that does not exist in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Illinois, or Wisconsin. Some closing-cost estimates already fold the registry tax in; it is broken out here so you can see it rather than to be double-counted.

On price growth: FHFA's 2026 Q1 Purchase-Only index put Minnesota at +2.78% year over year, twenty-second among the states. Ordinary.

2. The two expenses that decide whether it works

Property tax: genuinely the low one, with a landlord-specific catch

Sources cluster very tightly. WalletHub reads Minnesota's effective rate at 1.02%; property-tax.info reads 1.00%; a median-based figure derived from Minnesota Department of Revenue levy data implies about 1.02%. This article uses 1.00%, and the whole disagreement is worth two basis points.

On the $375,000 example: $375,000 x 1.00% = $3,750 a year, or $312.50 a month.

The Homestead Market Value Exclusion does not apply to a rental. Minnesota's exclusion (enacted 2011, replacing the old homestead credit) reduces the taxable market value — not the bill directly — for owner-occupied homestead property. Homes valued at $95,000 or less get a 40% exclusion, capped at $38,000; between $95,000 and $517,200 the exclusion is $38,000 minus 9% of the value over $95,000; and it phases out entirely at $517,200 and above. It is applied automatically once a property is classified homestead with the county assessor.

A rental is not homestead, so it gets none of that. Two consequences follow:

1. On a mid-priced Minnesota house the exclusion is small in absolute terms by the time value climbs — at $375,000 of market value the formula gives $38,000 minus 9% of $280,000, which is $12,800 of excluded value — but on a lower-priced property it is proportionally larger, and it is exactly the properties an entry-level investor looks at where the seller's bill is most flattered.
2. Classification matters as well as the exclusion. Minnesota taxes property through class rates set by use, and homestead and non-homestead residential are separate classifications. The county assessor is the authority on what your specific parcel will be classified as and what that does to the bill. Ask them; do not derive it from the listing.

The correct Minnesota procedure is the same as everywhere else in this series and more important here than most: get the estimated market value from the county assessor, confirm the non-homestead classification, and get the local tax rate for the parcel. Never underwrite a Minnesota rental from the seller's current bill.

Here is the same house with only the effective rate changed:

The realistic Minnesota tax range across these counties is worth 0.27 points of cap rate.

Insurance: unexpectedly expensive, and recently repriced

The reference figure is $3,333 a year at $300,000 of dwelling coverage with a $1,000 typical all-perils deductible, from Insurance.com's 2026 state table, whose quoted rates assume exactly $300,000 dwelling, $300,000 liability, and a $1,000 deductible.

Two independent reads at higher coverage land close by and corroborate rather than contradict: NerdWallet at $3,615 on $400,000 of dwelling coverage, and Insurify at $3,530 for 2025 rising to a projected $3,654 by end-2026 — but at Minnesota's average dwelling limit of $407,360, roughly 36% above this article's reference tier. One genuine dissent is recorded rather than hidden: ValuePenguin reports $2,191 at $350,000 of coverage, which is lower at a higher coverage level and therefore reflects a different quoting basis. Three of four sources cluster between $3,333 and $3,654.

At $3,333 the premium is $277.75 a month and 11.57% of gross rent on Section 3's example.

The trend is the part a landlord should not skim. Insurify's series shows Minnesota rising from $2,632 in 2024 to $3,530 in 2025 — a 34% single-year increase, the largest of any state in the country. The projected +4% for 2026 is a deceleration off an already-reset base, not a return to prior pricing. If you are modelling a Minnesota hold from a premium quoted two or three years ago, that number is stale in a way that a property tax figure would not be.

Here is the same house with only the premium changed:

Insurance is worth 0.85 points of cap rate across that range, against 0.27 points for property tax. In Minnesota, insurance has roughly three times the leverage of tax — the opposite of Illinois, and the same shape as Michigan.

Note that Minnesota's own county averages ($2,467 and $2,662) sit well below the statewide figure. That is unusual — in most states the big metro is the expensive one — and it means a Twin Cities landlord is likely to do better than $3,333 while a landlord in a hail-exposed outstate county may do considerably worse.

The wind/hail deductible, and why it is a landlord's problem specifically

Minnesota has no hurricane exposure, but it is a severe-hail state, and a separate percentage wind/hail deductible is now genuinely common here rather than exotic.

Carriers writing in Minnesota increasingly attach a wind/hail deductible expressed as a percentage of Coverage A — commonly 1% to 2% statewide, with 2% to 5% reported as routine in Twin Cities metro underwriting — instead of the flat dollar amount that still governs every other peril. On a $300,000 dwelling limit:

• 1% = $3,000
• 2% = $6,000
• 5% = $15,000

Against the $1,000 all-perils deductible printed on the same declarations page.

One important calibration, stated because it cuts against the point. Insurify's 2026 hail analysis puts Minnesota's average wind/hail deductible at 0.59% of dwelling coverage — $1,770 in dollar terms — which is well below the 1% to 2% figure agents describe. That gap exists because a large share of Minnesota policies still carry a flat wind/hail deductible, pulling the statewide average down. So this is a convention a Minnesota landlord must check for on their own declarations page, not one that is universal and not one that is rare.

Section 3 works out that this rental produces $13,883.40 of net operating income in a good year. So:

• A 1% wind/hail deductible ($3,000) is 21.61% of a full year's NOI
• A 2% deductible ($6,000) is 43.22% of a full year's NOI
• A 5% deductible ($15,000) is 108.04% of a full year's NOI

You cannot pass any of it to a tenant. It is not a lease obligation, it is not billable, and unlike a Gulf-state hurricane deductible there is no statutory once-per-calendar-year limit — it is a carrier underwriting term applied to any wind or hail loss.

Roof settlement is the other half of the same problem. Roof age, not a statewide rule, decides the settlement basis. Replacement cost remains standard on newer roofs, but Minnesota carriers have moved aggressively toward actual-cash-value settlement or a scheduled depreciation table on older roofs — commonly at 15 years, and some carriers as early as 10. A roof schedule pays a declining percentage of replacement cost as the roof ages; Minnesota contractors illustrate the curve as roughly 100% when new falling to about 30% at 15 years. On a $25,000 to $30,000 shingle replacement that is a five-figure gap the owner absorbs, on top of the deductible.

Two Minnesota homeowners on the same street can have opposite settlement bases depending on roof age and carrier. Get the roof age in writing and ask which basis applies.

The residual market has a specific limitation landlords need to know. The Minnesota FAIR Plan (Minn. Stat. 65A.31 through 65A.42) writes homeowners forms for owner-occupied primary residences. Non-owner-occupied dwellings, rentals, and second homes fall to the narrower named-peril dwelling-fire form rather than a homeowners policy, and the dwelling-fire forms carry no liability coverage at all. Dwelling coverage is capped at $500,000. Eligibility is exclusionary by design: an applicant holding any offer from a standard carrier is ineligible. It is a backstop, and for a rental it is a narrower backstop than it is for a homeowner.

Coverage adequacy is a separate question from premium. Minnesota rebuild cost runs about $250 per square foot (the midpoint of a published $180 to $320 band — read it as a range, not a point; Minnesota carries its own band, the highest of any Midwestern state except Illinois). A 1,500 square foot house rebuilds for roughly $375,000, which is exactly the statewide median sale price, and 15.70% above Ramsey County's $324,107 median. A $300,000 dwelling limit buys roughly 1,200 square feet. Market price is a poor guide to your coverage limit; get the carrier's replacement cost estimator output instead.

3. A full worked example

The property. A single-family house at the Minnesota statewide median of $375,000.

The rent — read this carefully. This site does not carry rent data. The $2,400 a month used below is an assumption chosen to be plausible for a house at that price. It is not a market observation. Pull three to five real comparable listings for the specific neighborhood and substitute the actual number, because Section 4 shows how sensitive the answer is to it.

The other assumptions:

• Vacancy: 8% of gross rent (roughly one month of turnover a year)
• Property management: 10% of collected rent
• Repairs and maintenance: 5% of gross scheduled rent
• Capital reserve: 5% of gross scheduled rent
• Financing: 25% down, 30-year fixed at 7.00% — the rate is an assumption, not a quote
• No HOA
• Property tax computed at the statewide 1.00% effective rate. On a real parcel, use the assessor's estimated market value, the non-homestead classification, and the local rate

Step 1 — income

• Gross scheduled rent: $2,400 x 12 = $28,800
• Vacancy loss: $28,800 x 8% = $2,304
• Effective gross income: $28,800 - $2,304 = $26,496

Step 2 — operating expenses

Management is charged on rent actually collected, not scheduled rent:

• Management: $26,496 x 10% = $2,649.60
• Property tax: $375,000 x 1.00% = $3,750
• Insurance: $3,333
• Maintenance: $28,800 x 5% = $1,440
• Capital reserve: $28,800 x 5% = $1,440
• Total operating expenses: $12,612.60

Expense ratio: $12,612.60 / $26,496 = 47.60% of collected rent — inside the 35% to 55% band most rentals land in.

Step 3 — net operating income and cap rate

• NOI = $26,496 - $12,612.60 = $13,883.40
• Cap rate = $13,883.40 / $375,000 = 3.70%

The mortgage is deliberately absent from that figure. Cap rate exists to compare properties independently of how they are financed; putting debt service into it is the most common error in this whole exercise, and it makes two identical houses look like different investments because one buyer put more down.

Step 4 — debt service and cash flow

Loan: $375,000 x 75% = $281,250. At 7.00% over 30 years, principal and interest is $1,871.16 a month, or $22,453.92 a year.

• Annual cash flow = $13,883.40 - $22,453.92 = -$8,570.52
• Monthly cash flow = -$714.21
• Debt service coverage ratio = $13,883.40 / $22,453.92 = 0.62

Step 5 — cash-on-cash return

• Cash invested: $107,521.88 (Section 1, including the $646.88 Mortgage Registry Tax)
• Cash-on-cash = -$8,570.52 / $107,521.88 = -7.97%

Rate sensitivity, since 7.00% was an assumption

• At 6.50%: P&I $1,777.69/mo, annual cash flow -$7,448.88
• At 7.00%: P&I $1,871.16/mo, annual cash flow -$8,570.52
• At 7.50%: P&I $1,966.54/mo, annual cash flow -$9,715.08

A full point of rate is worth about $2,266.20 a year.

The check that almost passes

Add up the three bills a lender escrows:

• Principal and interest: $1,871.16
• Property tax: $3,750 / 12 = $312.50
• Insurance: $3,333 / 12 = $277.75
• Total: $2,461.41 a month

Against $2,400 of assumed rent, that is -$61.41 a month — small enough that most people call it even, note that rents rise, and move on.

That is the trap. The honest analysis in Step 4 loses $714.21 a month. The gap is $652.80 a month, and every dollar of it is Section 4.

4. The expenses people leave out

Vacancy, management, and capital reserves do not arrive as invoices. Nobody bills you for the month the house sits empty, or for the roof you will need in nine years, or — if you self-manage — for your own weekends. So they fall out of the mental model, and the property looks better than it is.

Here is the same house with those three removed and everything else identical:

The three omissions are worth $6,393.60 a year — $2,304 of vacancy, $2,649.60 of management, $1,440 of reserve. They flatter the cap rate by 1.71 percentage points and hide 74.60% of the annual loss.

The left column is what an optimistic Minnesota spreadsheet looks like: a 5.41% cap rate, a DSCR of 0.90, and a $181.41 monthly shortfall. The right column is the same house at 3.70%, DSCR 0.62, losing $8,570.52 a year. Nothing about the property changed. Three lines were added.

The left column's 29.59% expense ratio is itself the tell — it sits well below the 35% to 55% band real rentals land in.

Vacancy. Eight percent is roughly one month a year, which is what a single clean turnover costs between move-out and the next tenant's first full month. Setting it to zero assumes the house is never empty, including between tenants.

Management. Set it to zero and the return is paying you for your own labor rather than for the property. Self-managing this house saves $2,649.60 a year, lifting NOI to $16,533 and the cap rate to 4.41%, with cash flow improving to -$493.41 a month. It is a real saving. It does not fix the deal, and it stops being free the moment you stop being available — which in a state with Minnesota's winters includes snow and ice obligations that a lease can assign to a tenant on paper and a court may not.

Capital reserves. Roofs, HVAC, water heaters, and flooring have known lives, and in Minnesota the roof clock is set by the carrier rather than the shingle: Section 2 explains that depreciation schedules commonly begin at 15 years and sometimes at 10, and that the illustrated curve falls to roughly 30% of replacement cost by year 15. Heating equipment also does more work here than almost anywhere else in the country. The 5%-of-rent convention used above is one option. A harsher and equally common convention is 1% of purchase price a year for maintenance and 1% for capital, which here is $3,750 each. Run that way: total operating expenses $17,232.60, expense ratio 65.04%, NOI $9,263.40, cap rate 2.47%, cash flow -$1,099.21 a month, DSCR 0.41.

So the honest cap-rate range for this property is 2.47% to 3.70% depending on which reserve convention you choose. Choose one deliberately.

What would actually have to be true

The rent this property needs. For cash flow to reach zero at this price and this financing, gross scheduled rent must reach about $40,572.69 a year, or $3,381.06 a month — 0.90% of purchase price per month. That is the second-lowest breakeven ratio in this Midwest set, behind only Wisconsin's 0.89%, and it is a direct consequence of Minnesota's low property tax rate. The assumed $2,400 rent is 0.64% of price.

The price this rent supports. Hold rent at $2,400 and solve for the price at which cash flow reaches zero with 25% down: about $252,348, or 67% of the statewide median.

The down payment this price needs. Keep the $375,000 price and the $2,400 rent and solve for the loan the NOI can service: about $173,898 — which means roughly $201,102 down, or 53.63% of the price.

5. What actually varies by county here

Minnesota's county variation is a tax story with an insurance twist that runs the friendly direction for once.

Take the identical $375,000 house at $2,400 rent and apply each county's actual tax rate and average premium:

Hennepin County comes out better than the statewide figure, despite a tax rate 17% higher, because its insurance average is $866 lower. Ramsey comes out slightly worse — its extra $1,012.50 of tax outweighs its $671 insurance saving by $341.50. The whole county spread is 0.15 points of cap rate, which is the narrowest in this Midwest set.

That narrowness is itself the finding: in Minnesota, choosing between the two big counties is not where the money is. The rent you can actually get, the roof age, and the deductible on the policy all matter more.

Now run each county at its own real median price and a rent assumption scaled to it:

• Hennepin County at $395,000 with a $2,500 assumed rent, 1.17% tax ($4,621.50) and $2,467 insurance: cash in $113,286.00 (including a $711.00 Mortgage Registry Tax at the 0.24% Hennepin rate), NOI $14,751.50, cap rate 3.73%, cash flow -$741.67 a month, cash-on-cash -7.86%, DSCR 0.62, rent-to-price 0.63%.
• Ramsey County at $324,107 with a $2,200 assumed rent, 1.27% tax ($4,116.16) and $2,662 insurance: cash in $92,953.89 (including a $583.39 Mortgage Registry Tax at 0.24%), NOI $12,441.04, cap rate 3.84%, cash flow -$580.47 a month, cash-on-cash -7.49%, DSCR 0.64, rent-to-price 0.68%.

St. Paul wins on this comparison — a better rent-to-price ratio, a lower entry, and a better cash-on-cash return — but the margin is under half a point and it rests entirely on an assumed rent. Substitute real rents and the ranking can flip. That is the honest state of a Minnesota county comparison.

Two further county-level facts to check for a specific address, neither of which is in a county average:

The ERF surcharge applies only in Hennepin and Ramsey. Both the Deed Tax and the Mortgage Registry Tax carry the extra 0.01% there. It is small — $37.50 on the deed and $28.13 on the mortgage at the figures above — but it is real and it belongs in the closing statement you check.

Local tax rates are set by city, school district, and special taxing districts. A county effective rate averages all of them. Get the parcel's actual rate from the county.

6. Financing a rental is not financing a home

These are the standard mechanisms across the mortgage market. Any specific rate or overlay is your lender's, not this article's.

Down payment. Conventional financing on a non-owner-occupied one-unit property generally requires more equity than an owner-occupied purchase — 20% is usually the floor and 25% the common expectation, which is why this article models 25%. FHA and VA are not available for a property you do not occupy. The genuine exception is house hacking: a two-to-four-unit property you live in one unit of qualifies for owner-occupied programs. Minneapolis and St. Paul have meaningful duplex stock, which makes this a more realistic route here than in most states.

Rate. Investment-property loans price above owner-occupied loans. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac apply loan-level price adjustments for investment occupancy that scale with loan-to-value and credit score; lenders pass those through as rate or points. The 7.00% modeled above is an assumption. Get a real quote.

Reserves. Lenders typically require post-closing reserves — months of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance held in liquid assets — scaling with the number of financed properties you own.

Rental income counting. Lenders credit a portion of market or lease rent toward qualifying, not all of it. Ask what percentage yours uses and whether they need an appraiser's rent schedule.

DSCR loans. A debt service coverage ratio loan qualifies the property rather than the borrower, comparing property income to debt service and largely skipping personal income documentation. The trade is a higher rate, a larger down payment, frequent prepayment penalties, and a minimum DSCR — commonly stated at or above 1.0 and often above 1.2.

Look at Section 3. This property's DSCR is 0.62, and even with vacancy, management, and reserves stripped out it is 0.90. It does not qualify at 75% loan-to-value on either version.

The Minnesota-specific financing point: the Mortgage Registry Tax is charged again if you refinance. It is levied on the recording of a mortgage, not on the purchase. A rate-and-term refinance records a new mortgage and therefore triggers it again on the new principal amount. At 0.23% that is $646.88 per $281,250 borrowed, every time. If your plan depends on refinancing out of a high rate in two years, that is a real, knowable cost of the plan and it belongs in the model now.

7. What to check before you buy in this state

Property tax and classification, from the assessor rather than the listing.

1. Get the estimated market value from the county assessor and confirm the parcel's classification as non-homestead residential.
2. Confirm the Homestead Market Value Exclusion is off the figure you are underwriting. A rental does not get it, and the seller's bill probably reflects it.
3. Get the local tax rate for the parcel's city, school district, and special taxing districts. A statewide 1.00% is for articles; both metro counties are above it.
4. Check for special assessments on the tax bill — street, sewer, and utility assessments are common in Minnesota municipalities and are invisible in an effective-rate average.

Insurance, second, and before your contingency period ends.

1. Get a bindable landlord policy quote for the specific address — a dwelling fire form with loss-of-rents coverage, not a homeowners quote and not a statewide average.
2. Read the deductible section and look specifically for a separate wind/hail line. If it is a percentage, convert it to dollars against the dwelling limit and write that number down. It is your minimum cash reserve.
3. Get the roof age in writing and ask specifically whether the roof settles at replacement cost, on a depreciation schedule, or at actual cash value. Fifteen years is the common threshold and some carriers start at ten.
4. Ask whether the address has an open or recent hail claim. Claim history follows the property.
5. Confirm the policy carries loss of rents and find out how many months it pays.
6. Get the carrier's replacement cost estimator output rather than deriving a limit from the purchase price. At roughly $250 per square foot, a 1,500 square foot Minnesota house rebuilds for about $375,000.
7. Understand that if you end up at the Minnesota FAIR Plan, a rental gets the narrower dwelling-fire form with no liability coverage, not a homeowners policy.
8. Flood and sewer backup are separate. No property policy covers flood, and water/sewer backup is an endorsement — relevant given Minnesota's older housing stock with basements and its spring melt cycle.

The rent, from the market.

1. Pull three to five genuine comparable rentals for the specific neighborhood and note how long they sat.
2. Divide monthly rent by purchase price. Section 4's breakeven for this example was 0.90%.

The law, from the statute rather than from an article.

1. Do not take eviction timelines, notice periods, security-deposit handling, or late-fee rules from a blog — including this one. Minnesota residential landlord-tenant law is consolidated in Minnesota Statutes Chapter 504B. Read it at the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes' own site, https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/504B, or have a Minnesota real estate attorney walk you through it. Minnesota's rules on security deposits, notice, and habitability are specific and have been amended in recent legislative sessions, so read the current text rather than a summary of an older version.
2. Check the city separately, and check it first in Minneapolis or St. Paul. Both cities operate rental licensing regimes, and both have adopted tenant-protection ordinances that go beyond state law. Rental licensing is a condition of legally renting, not a formality.

The money and the tax treatment.

1. Budget the Mortgage Registry Tax at 0.23% of the loan (0.24% in Hennepin or Ramsey) at purchase — and again at every refinance.
2. Size your cash reserves against the wind/hail deductible in dollars plus a depreciated roof settlement, not against a month of mortgage payments.
3. Ask a Minnesota CPA how the property will be taxed, including depreciation, passive activity loss rules, Minnesota's state income tax treatment of rental income for a nonresident owner, and treatment on sale.

What to do next

Every figure above came from a data file or was computed in front of you. Re-run all of it with your own numbers.

The Minnesota rental analysis calculator does exactly the work in Sections 3 and 4 — enter your price, your real local rent, and your own vacancy, management, and reserve assumptions, and it produces NOI, cap rate, cash flow, cash-on-cash, and DSCR. It also warns you when you have left out the expenses Section 4 is about, rather than letting them pass silently. Given that Minnesota's naive PITI check misses by only $61.41 while the honest analysis loses $714.21 a month, that warning is the whole point here.

The Minnesota insurance premium estimator will get you closer to a real figure than the $3,333 statewide average — which both covered counties come in well under — and it converts a 1%, 2%, or 5% wind/hail deductible into actual dollars rather than leaving it as a percentage.

The Minnesota mortgage payment calculator gives you the principal and interest figure for the rate you are actually quoted, which Section 3 shows is worth about $2,266 a year per point.

This article is general educational information about rental property arithmetic in Minnesota, based on figures current as of August 2026. It is not investment, tax, insurance, or legal advice. The rent figures in the worked examples are stated assumptions, not market data. Insurance premiums, property tax assessments, and mortgage rates change and vary by property. Consult a Minnesota CPA, a licensed Minnesota insurance agent, and a Minnesota real estate attorney before buying.