Howard City, Michigan.
Typical home $280,049 (+6.8% in a year). Grand Rapids-Kentwood, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$875 (+147%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,782 +7%
- $262,267$280,049 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $68,248 +32%
- $211,801$280,049 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.
- Howard City$1,470
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Howard City, MI rose 6.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Howard City, Montcalm County, Michigan
Howard City is a village of 1,835 people in Montcalm County. Half its households earn more than $54,688 a year and half less, against $67,344 across Montcalm County; 24% of its people live below the poverty line. 78% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 22% are rented. Unemployment in Montcalm County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 0.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Montcalm County work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Howard City is a small village where most people own the homes they live in, and the population is younger than in many small towns. Incomes run well below the county's, and more residents live below the poverty line than most would expect in a place this size. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and winters are cold and very snowy, with a mild, warm July.
Work. Residents work mainly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in the building trades. The county's largest workplaces include Dicastal North America, an aluminum castings maker, Greenville Public Schools, and Corewell Health Greenville Hospital. Many people drive a fair way to work, and few work from home.
Things to do. Cowden Lake is a short drive away, and so is Newaygo State Park, a protected area good for time outdoors. A longer drive brings you to Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, a botanical garden that suits a day out. The rivers and lakes of the area, such as the Flat River and Hess Lake, are also within a longer drive.
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- 710households
- 7%of adults have a degree
- 24%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What people in Montcalm County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Montcalm County had 16,387 jobs in 2025, 0.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 13°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 56°. About 73 inches of snow and 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Greenville Nne weather station, 17 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Montcalm County
- Dicastal North AmericaCastings, unfinished, aluminum, manufacturing498
- State of Michigan Department of CorrectionsCorrectional institutions454
- Greenville Public SchoolsSchool district443FTE
- Corewell Health Greenville HospitalGeneral hospital381FTE
- Tenneco, GreenvilleBearings, automotive and truck gasoline engine, manufacturing296
- County of MontcalmExecutive offices, federal, state, and local288
- MeijerRetail285
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters282
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 50 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,376 people in all across the county; Howard City has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals 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
- Winter weatherVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Howard City’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 Montcalm County and the Grand Rapids-Kentwood, MI metro.
Howard City home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Howard City$280,049
- 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.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Howard City 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.
- Howard City33.67%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Howard City38
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Howard City14
Zip codes with a Howard City address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Howard City — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.