Dowling, Michigan.
Typical home $272,006 (+7.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$788 (+123%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,290 +8%
- $252,716$272,006 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $63,257 +30%
- $208,749$272,006 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.
- Dowling$1,428
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Dowling, MI rose 7.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Dowling, Barry County, Michigan
Dowling, in Barry County, had 351 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Barry County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Barry County work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Dowling is a very small community in Barry County, Michigan, home to far fewer people than a typical town. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month and snowfall heavier than in much of the country, while summers are warm, with July the warmest. Precipitation is steady through the year. Fewer adults here hold a four-year degree than is typical nationally, and a smaller share of people live below the poverty line than in many places.
Work. Residents work mainly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in the building trades. Across Barry County, some of the largest workplaces are Bradford White, which makes household hot water heaters, the Thornapple Kellogg School District, and Flexfab, which makes reinforced rubber and plastic hoses. The typical commute is fairly long, which suggests many people travel some distance to their jobs, and jobs across the county have grown only slightly over the past year.
Things to do. The Gilmore Car Museum is the best known place nearby, a museum a longer drive away. Gull Lake, also a longer drive away, offers lake days in the warm months. The North Country Trail, another longer drive away, is a trail for walking when the weather allows.
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- 18%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 37 mintypical commute
What people in Barry County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Barry County had 13,286 jobs in 2025, 0.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 59°. About 68 inches of snow and 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Hastings weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Barry County
- Bradford WhiteHot water heaters, household-type, manufacturing1,614
- Thornapple Kellogg School DistrictSchool district405FTE
- Flexfab LLC - MainHoses, reinforced, rubber or plastics, manufacturing338
- Corewell Health Pennock HospitalCritical access hospital308FTE
- Hastings Area School DistrictSchool district306FTE
- Thornapple ManorSkilled nursing facilities270
- Viking Corp HastingsSprinkler systems, automatic fire, manufacturing258
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters226
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 36 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,747 people in all across the county; Dowling has none 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 windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Dowling’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 Barry County.
Dowling home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Dowling$272,006
- Michigan$263,760
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Dowling8
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Dowling address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Dowling — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.