Hessel, Michigan.
Typical home $232,091 (+9.2% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$711 (+140%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,627 +9%
- $212,464$232,091 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $66,042 +40%
- $166,049$232,091 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.
- Hessel$1,218
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Hessel, MI rose 9.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Hessel, Mackinac County, Michigan
The Census does not count Hessel on its own, so the figures here are Mackinac County's. Half the county's households earn more than $63,909 a year and half less; 16% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 78% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 22% are rented. Unemployment in Mackinac County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.7% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Mackinac County work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Hessel is a small town in Mackinac County, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Winters here are colder than in most of the country, while summers are mild and warm. The area gets a good deal of rain and melted snow over the year.
Work. Across Mackinac County, many people work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, or in government. Unemployment is a little lower than a year earlier, though the county has slightly fewer jobs than the year before. A minority of adults hold a four-year degree, and most people travel to a workplace rather than working from home.
Things to do. Lake Michigan–Huron, a lake, is a longer drive away and is one of the region's main draws. Fort Mackinac and Fort Michilimackinac, both forts, are also a longer drive away.
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- 5,199households
- 53.0median age
- 25%of adults have a degree
- 16%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What people in Mackinac County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Mackinac County had 4,804 jobs in 2025, 0.7% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 23° and lows near 5°; warmest in July, with highs near 76° and lows near 51°. About 35 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Rudyard 5SE weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Mackinac County
- Grand HotelHotel management services404
- Mackinac Straits Health SystemCritical access hospital198FTE
- Chippewa Hotel CompanyHotels, seasonal, without casinos105
- Mackinac Island Ferry CompanyCoastal passenger transportation to and from domestic ports100
- St. Ignace Area SchoolsSchool district59FTE
- Engadine Consolidated SchoolsSchool district55FTE
- The Inn At Stonecliffe5454
- Flotation Docking SystemsDock construction33
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 9 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 815 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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
FEMA rates every natural hazard here relatively low or very low.
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Mackinac County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very low. 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 Mackinac County.
Hessel home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Hessel$232,091
- Michigan$263,760
- 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.
- Hessel7
Zip codes with a Hessel address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Hessel — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.