Cedar, Michigan.
Typical home $521,366 (+2.3% in a year). Traverse City, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,570 (+135%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,686 +2%
- $509,680$521,366 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $100,287 +24%
- $421,079$521,366 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.
- Cedar$2,737
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Cedar, MI rose 2.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Cedar, Leelanau County, Michigan
Cedar, in Leelanau County, had 102 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Leelanau County was 3.6% in August 2026, and the county had 10.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Leelanau County work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Cedar is a small community in Leelanau County, in northwestern Michigan, on the Leelanau Peninsula between Grand Traverse Bay and Lake Michigan. Its population is very small, so daily life here tends to be quiet and close-knit, with neighbors who know one another. The surrounding countryside is shaped by its many lakes, rivers and dunes.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, or in professional and business services. Others work in local shops, or in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, which often rise and fall with the summer visitors. Winters are long and cold, with far more snow than most of the country sees, so the seasons shape work and daily routines.
Things to do. Lake Leelanau, a lake a short drive away, offers swimming, boating and quiet shoreline walks in the warmer months. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a protected area a longer drive off, is one of the best known natural landscapes in the region, with towering sand dunes and wide views over Lake Michigan.
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What people in Leelanau County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Leelanau County had 7,359 jobs in 2025, 10.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 57°. About 143 inches of snow and 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Maple City 1E weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Leelanau County
- Menards"home centers"219
- TargetDiscount department stores170
- Leelanau CountyGovernment130
- National Park ServiceFederal government · Department of the Interior128
- Glen Lake Community SchoolsSchool district125FTE
- Oryana WestGrocery stores105
- Thompson Surgical InstrumentsClamps, surgical, manufacturing100
- Power Logistics MI LLC WMI2Local letter and parcel delivery services as part of intercity courier network90
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 17 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,365 people in all across the county; Cedar has none of its own. Federal offices come from OPM's federal workforce data (2026) 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Cedar’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Leelanau County and the Traverse City, MI metro.
Cedar home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Cedar$521,366
- Michigan$263,760
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Cedar 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.
- Cedar28.19%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Cedar30
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Cedar9
Zip codes with a Cedar address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Cedar — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.