Monitor, Michigan.
Typical home $240,148 (+5.2% in a year). Bay City, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$704 (+127%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $11,966 +5%
- $228,182$240,148 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $56,739 +31%
- $183,409$240,148 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.
- Monitor$1,260
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Monitor, MI rose 5.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Monitor, Bay County, Michigan
Monitor is a township of 10,687 people in Bay County. Half its households earn more than $76,563 a year and half less, against $61,763 across Bay County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 91% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 9% are rented. Unemployment in Bay County was 5.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Monitor is a township in Bay County, Michigan, and it is mostly a place of homeowners: far more households own their homes than rent them. Residents are older than in much of the country, and incomes run well above the county's, with a smaller share of people living below the poverty line than you might expect. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and professional and business services also employing a good number. The largest workplaces in Monitor include Michigan Sugar Company, Bay-Arenac ISD and Meijer. A typical commute is a moderate one, and some residents work from home.
Things to do. Wenona Beach Amusement Park is in or beside town. A short drive away are the USS Edson, a museum, and Bay City State Park, a protected area. The Saginaw River is a longer drive away.
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- 4,473households
- 28%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Bay County had 34,153 jobs in 2025, 0.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 58°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Auburn 2NE weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Monitor
- Michigan Sugar CompanyRaw beet sugar manufacturing632
- Bay-Arenac ISDSchool district403FTE
- MeijerRetail282
- Carriage House Nursing and RehabSkilled nursing facilities206
- Menards"home centers"163
- Kerkau ManufacturingFlanges and flange unions, pipe, metal, manufacturing152
- Metro FabricatingSheet metal work manufacturing59
- Covenant HealthCareMedical care management services55
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,886 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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Bay County, 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 Bay County and the Bay City, MI metro.
Monitor home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Monitor$240,148
- Michigan$263,760
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Monitor 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.
- Monitor33.82%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Monitor39
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Monitor16
Zip codes with a Monitor address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Monitor — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.