Wheeling, West Virginia.
Typical home $152,504 (+4.6% in a year), asking rent $817 (+2.9%). Wheeling, WV-OH metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$388 (+94%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,712 +5%
- $145,792$152,504 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $22,733 +18%
- $129,771$152,504 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.
- Wheeling$800
- West Virginia$927
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 21 years.
Typical home values in Wheeling, WV rose 4.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Wheeling, WV rose 2.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Wheeling runs $223/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $262 in Oct 2023.
That is $1,040 a month against $817 rent: a $800 mortgage payment, plus $76 property tax and $163 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Wheeling
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$1,040
- Renting$817
- Mortgage only$800
Property tax · $76/mo 0.60% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Ohio County, WV
Insurance & upkeep · $163/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia
Wheeling is a city of 27,052 people in Ohio County. Half its households earn more than $48,590 a year and half less, against $57,094 across Ohio County; 20% of its people live below the poverty line. 60% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 40% are rented. Unemployment in Wheeling was 4.5% in August 2026, and Ohio County had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
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. Wheeling is a river city, and its residents skew older than in much of the country. Incomes here run below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than a typical American community would see. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and typical home values and rents are modest. Winters are cold and snowy, summers are warm, and rain and melted snow fall through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, shops, and professional and business services. Wheeling Hospital, Ohio County Schools and Delaware North Companies are among the largest workplaces in the city. Unemployment is a little lower than a year ago, though the county has slightly fewer jobs than it did the year before. Commutes are fairly short, and few people work from home.
Things to do. Oglebay Park is a garden in or beside town, and Wheeling Park is another green space close by. West Virginia Independence Hall, a museum, also sits in or beside town. For a longer drive, Grave Creek Mound is an archaeological site worth the trip.
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- 12,614households
- 34%of adults have a degree
- 20%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Ohio County had 27,052 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 39° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 64°. About 42 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Wheeling weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Wheeling
- Wheeling HospitalGeneral hospital2,338FTE
- Ohio County SchoolsSchool district757FTE
- Delaware North CompaniesOther gambling industries383
- Environment Control Ohio ValleyJanitorial services263
- ZiegenfelderJuice pops, frozen, manufacturing256
- Team SleddTobacco products merchant wholesalers245
- West Virginia Northern Community CollegeTwo-year college205
- Peterson HealthcareSkilled nursing facility181
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 23 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,857 people in all. 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
- Inland floodingVery high
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of WheelingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Wheeling’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 Ohio County and the Wheeling, WV-OH metro.
Wheeling home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Wheeling$152,504
- West Virginia$176,576
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Wheeling listings, and the typical home goes pending in 22 days — the market is cooling.
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.
- Wheeling27.42%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Wheeling22
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Wheeling158
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Wheeling44
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Wheeling$157,324
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Wheeling96.18%
Zip codes with a Wheeling address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Wheeling — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Wheeling
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26003 | Wheeling | 39,982 | $821 | $161,878 |
| 26036 | Dallas | 712 | — | $176,173 |