Wheeler, Michigan.
Typical home $189,880 (+4.3% in a year). Alma, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$510 (+105%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,792 +4%
- $182,088$189,880 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $13,409 +8%
- $176,470$189,880 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.
- Wheeler$997
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 47 years.
Typical home values in Wheeler, MI rose 4.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Wheeler, Gratiot County, Michigan
Wheeler is a township of 2,612 people in Gratiot County. Half its households earn more than $61,149 a year and half less, against $63,556 across Gratiot County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 76% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 24% are rented. Unemployment in Gratiot County was 5.3% in August 2026, and the county had 3.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Wheeler is a township in Gratiot County, home to a small community, with an older population than the typical American community. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and typical home values and household incomes sit a little below the county's. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, the building trades and shops also employing many. Across Gratiot County, the largest workplaces include Mymichigan Medical Center-gratiot, Alma College and Gratiot-Isabella RESD Schools. Relatively few adults hold a four-year degree, and the typical commute is a fairly long one, with only a small share working from home.
Things to do. The Clark-Stringham Site, an archaeological site, is a short drive away. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to the Chippewa Nature Center, a botanical garden, and the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area. The Saginaw River, also a longer drive away, is the best known of the rivers in the area.
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- 978households
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Gratiot County had 12,739 jobs in 2025, 3.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 59°. About 39 inches of snow and 34 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Alma weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Gratiot County
- Mymichigan Medical Center-gratiotGeneral hospital385FTE
- Alma CollegeUniversity or college365
- Gratiot-Isabella RESDSchool district355FTE
- Avalon & Tahoe ManufacturingBoats manufacturing300
- Alma Public SchoolsSchool district284FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters266
- MeijerRetail243
- Masonic PathwaysAssisted-living facilities with on-site nursing facilities208
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 41 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,369 people in all across the county; Wheeler has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Gratiot 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 Gratiot County and the Alma, MI metro.
Wheeler home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Wheeler$189,880
- 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 Wheeler address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Wheeler — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Wheeler
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 48615 | Breckenridge | 3,061 | — | $178,892 |
| 48662 | Wheeler | 1,185 | — | $186,885 |