Bark River, Michigan.
Typical home $218,475 (+8.0% in a year). Escanaba, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$623 (+119%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,203 +8%
- $202,271$218,475 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $37,888 +21%
- $180,586$218,475 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.
- Bark River$1,147
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Bark River, MI rose 8.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Bark River, Delta County, Michigan
Bark River is a township of 1,595 people in Delta County. Half its households earn more than $69,375 a year and half less, against $57,809 across Delta County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 88% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 12% are rented. Unemployment in Delta County was 5.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Bark River is a small township in Delta County in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, home to a population that skews older than most communities. Nearly everyone owns the home they live in, and household incomes run higher than across the county as a whole. Fewer adults hold a four-year degree than you might expect given those incomes, and winters are long, cold and snowy, with summers that stay mild.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, restaurants and hotels, and the building trades also employing many. Across Delta County, the largest workplaces include the Billerud Escanaba Mill, St. Francis Hospital and Escanaba Area Public Schools. Most people commute a moderate distance to work, and few work from home.
Things to do. The Bark River and the Ford River are both a short drive away, and make good places for time near the water. Wells State Park, a protected area, is a longer drive, as is the IXL Historical Museum for anyone who likes local history.
Report a mistake
- 622households
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Delta County had 13,886 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 26° and lows near 8°; warmest in July, with highs near 77° and lows near 56°. About 47 inches of snow and 29 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Escanaba weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Delta County
- Billerud Escanaba MillPaper or pulp mill construction828
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters324
- St. Francis HospitalCritical access hospital321FTE
- Escanaba Area Public SchoolsSchool district251FTE
- Bay de Noc Community CollegeTwo-year college213
- MeijerRetail207
- Gladstone Area SchoolsSchool district174FTE
- CR Meyer - EscanabaIndustrial building construction, general contractors135
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 36 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,672 people in all across the county; Bark River has none 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
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Delta 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 Delta County and the Escanaba, MI metro.
Bark River home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bark River$218,475
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bark River10
Zip codes with a Bark River address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bark River — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.