Merkel, Texas.
Typical home $204,066 (+8.7% in a year). Abilene, TX metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$604 (+129%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,348 +9%
- $187,718$204,066 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $41,240 +25%
- $162,826$204,066 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.
- Merkel$1,071
- Texas$1,556
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Merkel, TX rose 8.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Merkel, Taylor County, Texas
Merkel is a town of 2,471 people in Taylor County. 73% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 27% are rented. Unemployment in Taylor County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then construction.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Merkel is a small town in Taylor County where most homes are lived in by their owners, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than is typical across the country. Winters are mild but cold enough for frost, summers are hot, and the year brings a modest amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in the building trades, in shops, and in banks, insurance and property. Across Taylor County, the largest workplaces include Hendrick Medical Center, Abilene ISD and Abilene Christian University. Most people have a fair drive to work, and few work from home.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Abilene State Park is a protected area, and Kirby Lake is a reservoir, both a longer drive away. The Grace Museum and the Buffalo Gap Historic Village are museums within the same longer drive, and the Abilene Zoological Gardens is a zoo also a longer drive away.
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- 918households
- 12%of adults have a degree
- 11%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Taylor County had 68,821 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 56° and lows near 31°; warmest in July, with highs near 94° and lows near 70°. About 27 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Merkel Southwest weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Taylor County
- Hendrick Medical CenterGeneral hospital2,467FTE
- Abilene ISDSchool district2,323FTE
- Abilene Christian UniversityUniversity or college1,134
- Wylie ISDSchool district667FTE
- Hendrick Health Service CenterBilling services560
- AbiMar FoodsSpecialty food stores530
- H-E-BRetail462
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters437
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 140 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 18,178 people in all across the county; Merkel has two of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- HailVery high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Merkel’s census tracts, 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 Taylor County and the Abilene, TX metro.
Merkel home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Merkel$204,066
- Texas$296,424
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Merkel listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Merkel30.47%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Merkel31
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Merkel7
Zip codes with a Merkel address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Merkel — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.