Sparta, Michigan.
Typical home $337,390 (+4.6% in a year). Grand Rapids-Kentwood, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,036 (+141%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $14,836 +5%
- $322,554$337,390 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $82,720 +32%
- $254,670$337,390 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.
- Sparta$1,771
- 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 Sparta, MI rose 4.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Sparta, Kent County, Michigan
Sparta is a village of 4,244 people in Kent County. Half its households earn more than $60,728 a year and half less, against $82,631 across Kent County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 76% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 24% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Sparta is a village in Kent County, a small community where people tend to know one another. It is a place of mostly owner-occupied homes, with a younger population than many small towns and incomes that sit below the county's. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow fall at a steady, moderate rate through the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and professional and business services also employing many. Among the biggest workplaces in Sparta are Sparta Area Schools, Tesa Plant Sparta and Spartan Graphics. A four-year degree is held by fewer adults than across much of the country, and a fair number of people work from home.
Things to do. The Rogue River is a short drive away, a quiet river for paddling or a walk along its banks. A longer drive brings you to Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, a botanical garden with outdoor sculpture, and to the John Ball Zoo. The Grand Rapids Art Museum is also a longer drive away for an afternoon indoors.
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- 1,828households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 17%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 32° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 57°. About 48 inches of snow and 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Kent City Southwest weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sparta
- Agrico LaborFarm labor contractors434
- Sparta Area SchoolsSchool district332FTE
- CeliaLaminated plastics plate, rod, and sheet, manufacturing330
- Tesa Plant SpartaAdhesive tape made from purchased materials200
- Spartan GraphicsOffset printing120
- Cascade DIE Casting Group331523 nonferrous metal die-casting foundries110
- Cascade Die Casting Group, Inc. Great Lakes Division Plant 1Foundries, die-casting, aluminum110
- SpartanNashSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores99
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 18 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,042 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 moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively 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 Sparta’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.
Sparta home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Sparta$337,390
- 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 4 Sparta 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.
- Sparta26.71%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Sparta32
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Sparta16
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Sparta$318,643
- United States$370,717
Zip codes with a Sparta address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Sparta — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.