Lowell, Michigan.
Typical home $410,452 (+4.9% in a year), asking rent $1,300 . Grand Rapids-Kentwood, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,263 (+142%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,255 +5%
- $391,197$410,452 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $106,807 +35%
- $303,646$410,452 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.
- Lowell$2,154
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Lowell, MI rose 4.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Lowell, Kent County, Michigan
Lowell is a city of 4,142 people in Kent County. Half its households earn more than $72,875 a year and half less, against $82,631 across Kent County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 70% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 30% 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 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Lowell is a small city in Kent County, Michigan, and a young one by the standards of many small towns, with residents who are younger than the typical American's. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and few residents live below the poverty line, though household incomes run a little below the county's. Winters are cold and very snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in professional and business services, or in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. The largest workplaces in Lowell include Lowell Area Schools, Litehouse Foods and Navico Attwood Lowell. Commutes are of moderate length, and some people work from home. Across Kent County, jobs have grown only slightly over the past year, and unemployment is a little lower than a year earlier.
Things to do. The North Country Trail runs in or beside town, and the Flat River and Thornapple River are both a short drive away for time on the water. A longer drive brings you to Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, a large botanical garden with sculpture, and to John Ball Zoo.
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- 1,678households
- 30%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents 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 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 62°. About 78 inches of snow and 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Grand Rapids weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lowell
- Lowell Area SchoolsSchool district410FTE
- Litehouse FoodsSalad dressings manufacturing300
- Navico Attwood LowellMarine hardware fabrication254
- Ciena Healthcare ManagementNursing care facilities -skilled nursing facilities110
- King Milling CompanyFlour mills, cereals grains67
- City of LowellExecutive and legislative office combinations36
- Apex Service PartnersPlumbing and heating contractors35
- Lowell Area Fire DepartmentFirefighting, forest28
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,266 people in all. School districts come 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively 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 Lowell’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 Kent County and the Grand Rapids-Kentwood, MI metro.
Lowell home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lowell$410,452
- 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 Lowell 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.
- Lowell29.91%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lowell42
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Lowell21
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Lowell$388,705
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Lowell address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lowell — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.