Thinking About Moving Here
Not a brochure. The same public numbers we use with clients, laid against the national figures, so you can decide whether this move makes sense before anyone tries to sell you on it.
The Honest Comparison
Across the fifteen counties we serve, home values sit well under the national figure while household income is within a few percent of it. That gap is the whole reason people move here, and it is easier to see as a ratio than as two separate numbers.
| Measure | West Michigan | United States | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median home value | $228,300 | $303,400 | -25% |
| Median household income | $73,647 | $78,538 | -6% |
| Home value as a multiple of income | 3.1x | 3.86x | -20% |
| Median gross rent | $1,127 | $1,348 | -16% |
| Share of homes owner occupied | 75.3% | 65.0% | +10.3 pts |
| Mean commute to work | 22.5 min | 26.6 min | -4.1 min |
The line that matters is the third one. A home here costs about 3.1 times a year of median household income, against 3.86 times nationally. On a practical level that is the difference between a mortgage you can carry on one income and one that needs two, and it is why the ownership rate here runs 10.3 points above the national rate.
None of that makes any particular community right for you, and averages across 1,994,192 people hide enormous variation. Home values across our municipalities run from the low hundreds to well over four hundred thousand. The community pages carry the real number for each one.
Where Construction Is Happening
6,297 new residential units were permitted across the footprint in 2025, worth $1.98 billion in construction value. Where the units sit in the five-plus column, a community is adding apartments and condominiums; where they sit in single family, it is adding subdivisions.
| Municipality | County | Single Family | 5+ Units | Total Units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Rapids | Kent | 117 | 645 | 801 |
| Wyoming | Kent | 85 | 340 | 425 |
| Holland charter township | Ottawa | 118 | 285 | 405 |
| Cascade charter township | Kent | 246 | 0 | 258 |
| Caledonia township | Kent | 212 | 0 | 212 |
| Grand Haven charter township | Ottawa | 52 | 142 | 194 |
What Is Actually Here
Sourced, and worth knowing before you decide. There is a great deal more of this on our Michigan facts page.
Michigan, with about 3,300 miles of Great Lakes shoreline. The DNR also notes Michigan has more total shoreline than any state except Alaska. Source
Along Michigan's Great Lakes shoreline. The state environmental agency describes them as the largest collection of freshwater dunes in the world, and roughly 74,000 acres along 265 miles of coast are regulated as critical dune areas. Source
The Michigan DNR counts 10,899 inland lakes of five acres or more. Its fishing pages use the broader figure of more than 11,000, which is where the familiar round number comes from. Source
The two peninsulas hold about 8 million acres of public hunting land, including 4.5 million acres the DNR manages directly. Statewide, Michigan carries close to 20 million acres of forest, roughly 4 million of it state forest. Source
Michigan, with nearly 300,000 registered snowmobiles, more than any other state. The DNR maintains more than 6,200 miles of groomed trail to go with them. Source
Michigan grows roughly three quarters of all the tart cherries produced in the United States, according to the state agriculture department, and has led the country for decades. Source
Narrowing It Down
West Michigan is not one market. It is a lakeshore, a city, a ring of townships and a lot of farmland, and the numbers move sharply between them. We publish a profile for every one of the 358 cities and townships in our footprint: population, income, home values, ownership, housing age, commute, what sold last month and what is being built, plus a link to that municipality's own website so you can read their side of it too.
If you tell us what you do for work, what you want to spend and what you cannot live without, we will point you at the three or four communities that actually fit, including the ones that are wrong for you and why. We would rather you land somewhere that works than somewhere we happened to have a listing.
Where These Numbers Come From
Home values, income, rent, ownership and commute times are U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey five-year estimates, weighted by population across our 358 municipalities, with the national figures drawn from the same survey so the comparison is like for like. Construction comes from the Census Building Permits Survey. Local facts carry their own source link.
We do not publish crime statistics or school ratings, and we do not rank communities. Those figures are reported by agency and district rather than by community, and deciding which place is better is not a brokerage's call to make. Every community we serve is presented using the same template and the same sources.