Forest Lake vs Lake Elmo

A side-by-side comparison of Forest Lake and Lake Elmo: population, income, housing, and more.

Forest Lake and Lake Elmo are places in Minnesota. This page compares them across population, income, housing, education, commuting, and how each has changed since 2019.

Forest Lake has the higher population (20,678 vs 12,504 in Lake Elmo). Lake Elmo has the higher median household income ($153,407 vs $89,879 in Forest Lake). Lake Elmo has the higher median home value ($588,900 vs $375,900 in Forest Lake).

Population, income & housing

	Forest Lake	Lake Elmo
Population	20,678	12,504
Median age	38.8 yrs	40.2 yrs
Median household income	$89,879	$153,407
Median home value	$375,900	$588,900
Median gross rent	$1,379	$2,204
Housing units	8,589	4,747
Homeownership rate	71.8%	92.3%
Bachelor's degree or higher	35.7%	61.7%
Unemployment rate	4.6%	2.3%

Trends (ACS 5-year, 2019–2023)

	Forest Lake	Lake Elmo
Population	20,004 → 20,678 (+3.4%)	8,969 → 12,504 (+39.4%)
Median household income	$79,840 → $89,879 (+12.6%)	$118,421 → $153,407 (+29.5%)
Median home value	$272,200 → $375,900 (+38.1%)	$426,600 → $588,900 (+38.0%)
Median gross rent	$1,117 → $1,379 (+23.5%)	$1,280 → $2,204 (+72.2%)

Forest Lake

Population

20,00420,678

Median household income

$79,840$89,879

Median home value

$272,200$375,900

Median gross rent

$1,117$1,379

Lake Elmo

Population

8,96912,504

Median household income

$118,421$153,407

Median home value

$426,600$588,900

Median gross rent

$1,280$2,204

Age & race/ethnicity

Age distribution (share)

	Forest Lake	Lake Elmo
Under 5	4.9%	7.9%
5 to 17	18.0%	19.1%
18 to 24	8.4%	6.0%
25 to 34	14.2%	9.7%
35 to 44	12.3%	14.7%
45 to 54	13.0%	15.5%
55 to 64	12.3%	12.5%
65 to 74	9.4%	7.7%
75 and over	7.4%	7.0%

Race & ethnicity (share)

	Forest Lake	Lake Elmo
White (non-Hispanic)	81.5%	85.2%
Black or African American	3.6%	1.4%
American Indian & Alaska Native	0.2%	0.0%
Asian	5.9%	3.8%
Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander	0.0%	0.0%
Some other race	1.0%	1.4%
Two or more races	3.3%	4.3%
Hispanic or Latino	4.5%	4.0%

Educational attainment (age 25+)

Share of adults 25+

	Forest Lake	Lake Elmo
No high school diploma	6.7%	1.1%
High school graduate	24.6%	14.5%
Some college or associate's	32.9%	22.8%
Bachelor's degree	25.0%	37.8%
Graduate or professional degree	10.8%	23.8%

Commute to work

How workers get to work (share)

	Forest Lake	Lake Elmo
Drove alone	73.0%	57.1%
Carpooled	7.6%	6.3%
Public transit	0.0%	0.5%
Walked	2.6%	0.3%
Bicycle	0.3%	0.3%
Worked from home	16.1%	34.5%
Other means	0.4%	1.0%

Housing

Units in structure (share)

	Forest Lake	Lake Elmo
1-unit, detached	60.7%	80.5%
1-unit, attached	12.8%	5.1%
2 to 4 units	2.6%	1.6%
5 to 19 units	4.7%	0.0%
20 or more units	17.4%	2.2%
Mobile home & other	1.9%	10.7%

Poverty & households

	Forest Lake	Lake Elmo
Poverty rate	6.7%	4.3%
Average household size	2.52	2.73
Mean commute (minutes)	25	23
Median year structure built	1990	2002