Jolo, West Virginia.
Typical home $48,812 (-3.5% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$75 (+41%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $1,751 -3%
- $50,562$48,812 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $22,432 -31%
- $71,243$48,812 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.
- Jolo$256
- West Virginia$927
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Jolo, WV fell 3.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Jolo, McDowell County, West Virginia
The Census does not count Jolo on its own, so the figures here are McDowell County's. Half the county's households earn more than $31,559 a year and half less; 34% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 77% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 23% are rented. Unemployment in McDowell County was 10.6% in August 2026, and the county had 5.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in McDowell County work in schools and health care, then government.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Jolo is a small community in McDowell County, in the hills of southern West Virginia, where coal and the mountains have shaped life for generations. Across the county, many residents are well past midlife, incomes are low, and a large share of households live below the poverty line. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and the typical home value is modest, so the town has the feel of a place where people have stayed put and looked out for one another.
Work. Work in and around Jolo tends to come from schools, hospitals and social care, government, farming, forestry and mining, and transport, warehouses and utilities. Jobs have been harder to find lately, since unemployment has risen over the past year and the county has fewer jobs than it did before. Few adults hold a four-year degree, few people work from home, and commutes are long, so most working days involve a real drive.
Things to do. Desolate Branch, a river, runs in or beside the town itself, so it is the easiest outing for a walk or a quiet afternoon. Panther Wildlife Management Area, a protected area, is a short drive away and offers open land for seeing wildlife. R. D. Bailey Lake, a lake, is a longer drive away and makes a good day trip for those who enjoy being on the water.
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- 6,467households
- 43.7median age
- 7%of adults have a degree
- 34%below the poverty line
- 36 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What people in McDowell County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. McDowell County had 3,739 jobs in 2025, 5.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 43° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 63°. About 16 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Grundy weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in McDowell County
- Mcdowell County SchoolsSchool district383FTE
- Welch Community HospitalGeneral hospital148FTE
- Bureau of Prisons/federal Prison SystemFederal government · Department of Justice134
- Wvnh EMPNursing care facilities83
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1 workplace with 20 or more staff, 83 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and federal offices from OPM's federal workforce data (2026); 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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across McDowell County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively 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 McDowell County.
Jolo home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Jolo$48,812
- West Virginia$176,576
- 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.
Zip codes with a Jolo address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Jolo — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.