South Boardman, Michigan.
Typical home $218,935 (+0.5% in a year). Traverse City, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$662 (+136%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $1,163 +1%
- $217,772$218,935 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $40,645 +23%
- $178,290$218,935 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.
- South Boardman$1,149
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in South Boardman, MI rose 0.5% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in South Boardman, Kalkaska County, Michigan
South Boardman, in Kalkaska County, had 509 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $83,750 a year and half less, against $68,578 across Kalkaska County; 11% of its people live below the poverty line. 87% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 13% are rented. Unemployment in Kalkaska County was 4.8% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Kalkaska 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. South Boardman is a very small community in Kalkaska County, where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Household incomes run higher than across the county, and a smaller share of people live below the poverty line than you might expect in a rural area. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are comfortably warm, peaking in July.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and the building trades close behind. Across Kalkaska County, some of the largest workplaces are Kalkaska Memorial Health Center, Kalkaska Public Schools and Wayne Wire Cloth Products. The typical commute is a long one, and only a small number of people work from home.
Things to do. Water is the main draw nearby. Long Lake and Fife Lake are both lakes a short drive away, and the Little Rapid River is a river a short drive away as well. For a longer outing, the Au Sable River is a well-known river a longer drive away.
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- 11%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What people in Kalkaska County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Kalkaska County had 4,924 jobs in 2025, 1.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 27° and lows near 13°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 55°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the South Boardman 2W weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Kalkaska County
- Kalkaska Memorial Health CenterCritical access hospital418FTE
- Kalkaska Public SchoolsSchool district194FTE
- C.C. PowerSubstation and switching station, power transmission line, construction165
- P.J. SteelOil pipeline construction119
- Wayne Wire Cloth ProductsMesh made from purchased wire114
- MacAllister Caterpillar KalkaskaAgricultural machinery and equipment repair and maintenance services92
- Northland Food and Family CenterFood stores70
- Forest Area Community SchoolsSchool district69FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,024 people in all across the county; South Boardman 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Lightningrelatively high in parts of South BoardmanRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in South Boardman’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Kalkaska County and the Traverse City, MI metro.
South Boardman home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- South Boardman$218,935
- 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.
- South Boardman11
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a South Boardman address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls South Boardman — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.