Fife Lake, Michigan.
Typical home $242,435 (+3.3% in a year). Traverse City, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$706 (+125%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,771 +3%
- $234,664$242,435 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $39,970 +20%
- $202,465$242,435 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.
- Fife Lake$1,272
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 19 years.
Typical home values in Fife Lake, MI rose 3.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Fife Lake, Kalkaska County, Michigan
Fife Lake is a village of 456 people in Kalkaska County. Half its households earn more than $68,472 a year and half less, against $68,578 across Kalkaska County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Kalkaska County was 4.8% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Fife Lake is a small village in Kalkaska County, built around the lake that gives it its name, with Long Lake in or beside town as well. Household incomes here run just a little below the county's, and homes are valued at a level that sits within reach of the surrounding area's. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm days and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in shops and in the building trades. Across Kalkaska County, some of the largest workplaces are Kalkaska Memorial Health Center, Kalkaska Public Schools and Wayne Wire Cloth Products. Getting to work usually means a fairly long drive, and only a small number of people work from home.
Things to do. Fife Lake and Long Lake are both in or beside town, so the water is close at hand. Spider Lake is a short drive away, and the Clam River is a longer drive. For something different, Pit Spitters Park, a stadium, is also a longer drive from town.
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- 159households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 39 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kalkaska County had 4,924 jobs in 2025, 1.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 25° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 55°. About 35 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Fife Lake 2WNW weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kalkaska County
- Kalkaska Memorial Health CenterCritical access hospital418FTE
- Kalkaska Public SchoolsSchool district194FTE
- C.C. PowerSubstation and switching station, power transmission line, construction165
- P.J. SteelOil pipeline construction119
- Wayne Wire Cloth ProductsMesh made from purchased wire114
- MacAllister Caterpillar KalkaskaAgricultural machinery and equipment repair and maintenance services92
- Northland Food and Family CenterFood stores70
- Forest Area Community SchoolsSchool district69FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,024 people in all across the county; Fife Lake has none 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Strong windrelatively high in parts of Fife LakeRelatively moderate
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of Fife LakeRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Fife Lake’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 Kalkaska County and the Traverse City, MI metro.
Fife Lake home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Fife Lake$242,435
- 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.
- Fife Lake19
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Fife Lake6
Zip codes with a Fife Lake address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Fife Lake — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.