Custer, Michigan.
Typical home $225,155 (+8.7% in a year). Ludington, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$680 (+136%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $18,004 +9%
- $207,151$225,155 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $29,456 +15%
- $195,699$225,155 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.
- Custer$1,182
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 25 years.
Typical home values in Custer, MI rose 8.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Custer, Mason County, Michigan
Custer is a village of 272 people in Mason County. 85% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 15% are rented. Unemployment in Mason County was 5.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Mason 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Custer is a very small village in Mason County, Michigan, where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and a somewhat larger share of residents live below the poverty line than is typical. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and highs staying below freezing, while July is pleasantly warm.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels close behind. Across Mason County, some of the largest workplaces are Corewell Health Ludington Hospital, the Ludington Area School District and House of Flavors, which makes ice cream. Commutes are fairly short, and few people work from home. Unemployment in the county has edged up from a year ago, and the number of jobs has slipped slightly.
Things to do. The Not-A-Pe-Ka-Gon Site, an archaeological site, is in or beside town. Dockery Lake and Gun Lake are both a short drive away for time on the water. For a longer outing, Ludington State Park is a protected area a longer drive away, and Lake Michigan lies in that direction too.
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- 101households
- 13%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What people in Mason County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Mason County had 10,162 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer 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 79° and lows near 58°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Ludington Southeast weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Mason County
- Corewell Health Ludington HospitalGeneral hospital307FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters286
- Indian SummerFruit and vegetable canning243
- House of FlavorsIce cream manufacturing241
- Ludington Area School DistrictSchool district229FTE
- MeijerRetail229
- West Shore Educational Service DistrictSchool district212FTE
- Mason County Central SchoolsSchool district149FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 35 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,270 people in all across the county; Custer has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Custer’s census tracts, 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 Mason County and the Ludington, MI metro.
Custer home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Custer$225,155
- Michigan$263,760
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
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.
- Custer10
Zip codes with a Custer address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Custer — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.