Free Soil, Michigan.
Typical home $265,823 (+12.0% in a year). Ludington, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$837 (+150%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $28,553 +12%
- $237,270$265,823 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $55,839 +27%
- $209,984$265,823 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.
- Free Soil$1,395
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Free Soil, MI rose 12.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Free Soil, Mason County, Michigan
Free Soil is a village of 158 people in Mason County. 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Free Soil is a very small village in Mason County, Michigan, with a population that ranks among the smallest of any place in the county. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and highs staying near freezing, while summers are warm, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year, and homes here are valued above what a household earning the county's median income might expect to find in many places.
Work. Residents of Free Soil work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and restaurants and hotels also employing many. Across Mason County, some of the largest workplaces are Corewell Health Ludington Hospital, Ludington Area School District and House of Flavors, an ice cream maker. Unemployment across the county has edged up over the past year, and the number of jobs there slipped slightly over the most recent year. Few adults in the village hold a four-year degree.
Things to do. Gun Lake sits in or beside town, and Udell Lookout Tower, a tourist attraction, and the Little Manistee River are both a short drive away. For a longer outing, Lake Michigan and Ludington State Park, a protected area, are a longer drive away.
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- 7%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
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 30° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 59°. About 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Manistee 3SE weather station, 8 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; Free Soil 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
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Free Soil’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.
Free Soil home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Free Soil$265,823
- 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.
- Free Soil16
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Free Soil4
Zip codes with a Free Soil address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Free Soil — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.