Fossil, Oregon.
Typical home $266,244 (+4.5% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$846 (+153%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,532 +5%
- $254,711$266,244 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $66,928 +34%
- $199,316$266,244 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.
- Fossil$1,397
- Oregon$2,586
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Fossil, OR rose 4.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Fossil, Wheeler County, Oregon
Fossil is a city of 447 people in Wheeler County. Half its households earn more than $54,167 a year and half less, against $55,284 across Wheeler County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Wheeler County was 3.8% in August 2026, and the county had 2.8% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Wheeler County work in schools and health care, then government.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Fossil is a very small city, home to fewer people than most towns of any kind. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and a modest share of residents live below the poverty line. Typical home values sit well above what the local incomes might suggest, and few adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with government, the building trades, and farming, forestry and mining close behind. Some people work from home. Across Wheeler County, the largest workplaces are Mitchell SD 55, Fossil SD 21J and the Fossil Elderly Housing Committee. Unemployment across the county is a little lower than a year ago, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. Dyer State Wayside is a protected area a short drive away. Farther out, a longer drive brings you to the Painted Hills, another protected area, and to Spring Basin Wilderness. Winters here are cold, summers are warm, and the year brings little rain or snow compared with much of the country, so dry days are common for time outdoors.
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- 19%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 14%work from home
What people in Wheeler County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Wheeler County had 352 jobs in 2025, 2.8% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 41° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 46°. About 15 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Fossil weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Wheeler County
- Mitchell SD 55School district82FTE
- Fossil SD 21JSchool district62FTE
- Fossil Elderly Housing CommitteeRetirement communities, continuing care25
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1 workplace with 20 or more staff, 25 people in all across the county; Fossil has two of its own. School districts come 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
- LightningVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Fossil’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Wheeler County.
Fossil home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Fossil$266,244
- Oregon$492,753
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Fossil address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Fossil — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.