Bear Lake, Michigan.
Typical home $317,674 (+10.4% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,038 (+165%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $30,004 +10%
- $287,671$317,674 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $80,161 +34%
- $237,513$317,674 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.
- Bear Lake$1,667
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Bear Lake, MI rose 10.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Bear Lake, Manistee County, Michigan
Bear Lake is a village of 342 people in Manistee County. Half its households earn more than $63,281 a year and half less, against $63,516 across Manistee County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 95% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 5% are rented. Unemployment in Manistee County was 5.0% in August 2026, and the county had 2.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Manistee County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Bear Lake is a very small village in Manistee County, and nearly everyone who lives there owns their home. Household incomes sit close to the county's, and relatively few residents fall below the poverty line. Winters are cold and very snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm days, and the year is fairly wet overall.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels. Across Manistee County, some of the largest workplaces are Packaging Corporation of America, Munson Healthcare Manistee Hospital and Manistee Area Public Schools. Unemployment in the county is lower than a year ago, and the county has added jobs over the past year.
Things to do. Close to the village, Portage Lake and Upper Herring Lake are both a short drive away, and Bear Creek is a short drive away too for time by the water. Michigan Legacy Art Park, a museum, is also a short drive away. For a longer outing, Orchard Beach State Park is a protected area a longer drive away.
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- 95households
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
What people in Manistee County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Manistee County had 7,448 jobs in 2025, 2.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 17°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 59°. About 92 inches of snow and 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Beulah 7SSW weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Manistee County
- Packaging Corporation of America340
- Michigan Great Lakes Virtual AcademySchool district328FTE
- MeijerRetail232
- Martin MariettaSpecialty171
- Munson Healthcare Manistee HospitalGeneral hospital171FTE
- Manistee Area Public SchoolsSchool district149FTE
- Morton Salt, Inc ManisteeSeasoning salt manufacturing92
- Kaleva Norman Dickson School DistrictSchool district79FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,265 people in all across the county; Bear Lake has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- LightningRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bear Lake’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Manistee County.
Bear Lake home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Bear Lake$317,674
- Michigan$263,760
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Bear Lake 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.
- Bear Lake36.51%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bear Lake21
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Bear Lake6
Zip codes with a Bear Lake address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bear Lake — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.