Melvin, Michigan.
Typical home $225,830 (+1.5% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$400 (+51%) since Feb 2022.
- 1 year
- Up $3,403 +2%
- $222,427$225,830 since Sep 2025
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.
- Melvin$1,185
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Melvin, MI rose 1.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Melvin, Sanilac County, Michigan
Melvin is a village of 148 people in Sanilac County. Unemployment in Sanilac County was 5.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.9% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Sanilac 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Melvin is a very small village in Sanilac County, Michigan, in the Thumb region, with far fewer residents than most towns. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest. Across the year there is a fair amount of rain and melted snow. Incomes across Sanilac County are modest, and a four-year degree is uncommon among adults here. The typical home is worth well above what the county's incomes might suggest, and the daily drive to work is on the long side.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in the building trades. Few people work from home, so most head out to a workplace, often some distance away. Across Sanilac County, some of the largest employers are Michigan Sugar Company, Gielow Pickles and Croswell-Lexington Community Schools. Jobs across the county have slipped slightly over the past year, and unemployment there is lower than it was a year earlier.
Things to do. For time outdoors, the Flint River and the Black River are both a longer drive away and suit anyone who likes being near water. Lakeport State Park is a protected area, also a longer drive away. For a quieter outing, the Thomas Edison Depot Museum is a museum, likewise a longer drive from the village.
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- 4%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 39 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What people in Sanilac County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Sanilac County had 10,347 jobs in 2025, 0.9% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 13°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 56°. About 41 inches of snow and 31 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Yale Nnw weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sanilac County
- HuronPrecision turned product manufacturing453
- Gielow PicklesCanning fruits and vegetables362
- Michigan Sugar CompanyGranulated beet sugar manufacturing289
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters252
- Cotterman Company - Michigan DivisionLadders, portable metal, manufacturing248
- Croswell-Lexington Community SchoolsSchool district245FTE
- Marlette Regional HospitalCritical access hospital230FTE
- Gemini PlasticsMotor vehicle moldings and extrusions, plastics, manufacturing181
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 27 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,227 people in all across the county; Melvin 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Melvin’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 Sanilac County.
Melvin home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Melvin$225,830
- 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.
Zip codes with a Melvin address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Melvin — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.