Gaines, Michigan.
Typical home $296,558 (+5.6% in a year), asking rent $2,135 . Grand Rapids-Kentwood, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$879 (+130%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,770 +6%
- $280,788$296,558 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $64,327 +28%
- $232,230$296,558 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.
- Gaines$1,557
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 14 years.
Typical home values in Gaines, MI rose 5.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Gaines, Kent County, Michigan
Gaines is a village of 377 people in Kent County. 89% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 11% are rented. Unemployment in Kent County was 4.3% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Kent 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Gaines is a very small village, and almost everyone who lives there owns their home. Rents run high for the area, but few households rent. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and freezing nights, and summers turn warm in July. Precipitation falls fairly evenly through the year as rain and melted snow. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and the commute to work is a long one.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with many others in manufacturing, professional and business services, and shops. Across Kent County, some of the biggest workplaces are general hospitals such as Corewell Health Grand Rapids Hospita and Trinity Health Grand Rapids, along with the insurance firm Acrisure. Unemployment in the county is a little lower than a year ago, and the number of jobs has edged up slightly. A small share of people work from home.
Things to do. The Maple River, a short drive away, is the closest spot for time by the water. A longer drive brings you to Seven Lakes State Park, a protected area, and to the Flint Institute of Arts, a museum. Together they make a good mix of outdoors and indoors for a day out.
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- 12%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 32 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What people in Kent County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kent County had 417,408 jobs in 2025, 0.4% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 61°. About 33 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Durand Wwtp weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kent County
- AcrisureInsurance agencies18,488
- Corewell Health Grand Rapids HospitaGeneral hospital9,199FTE
- Trinity Health Grand RapidsGeneral hospital3,221FTE
- Access Business GroupDetergents manufacturing2,775
- Metropolitan HospitalGeneral hospital2,643FTE
- Kent CompaniesFoundation, building, poured concrete, contractors2,472
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage2,440
- Corewell Health Place Loc0096-corewell Health PlaceAdministration of human resource programs2,271
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1,143 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 184,795 people in all across the county; Gaines has none of its own. Hospitals come 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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively 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 Gaines’ 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 Kent County and the Grand Rapids-Kentwood, MI metro.
Gaines home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Gaines$296,558
- Michigan$263,760
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Gaines listings — the market is heating up.
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.
- Gaines22.77%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Gaines14
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Gaines6
Zip codes with a Gaines address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Gaines — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Gaines
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 49316 | Caledonia | 26,427 | $2,221 | $442,713 |
| 48436 | Gaines | 4,131 | — | $296,043 |