housing

In June the City Commission received, with remarkably little fan faire, the second major update to the 2020 Housing Next study. This time the study includes estimates for the years 2025 through 2029.

It has been roughly six months since we last looked at the ZORI (Zillow Observed Rent Index) 👉here👈 where we compared across the cities of the Midwest. Here is a chart from the current data showing the value for the City of Grand Rapids vs. the Census Bureau's "Metropolitan Statistical Area" (MSA).

Strongtowns' finally has guidance on housing policy in the form of "The Housing Ready City toolkit (PDF)". It is six simple land-use reforms:

2015 - 2024

How as Grand Rapids' rent changed in the last ten years?

Given that we are about to enter into a season of constant housing and land-use policy conversation it seems like a good time to update the "A"ffordable housing tables. The standard for "A"ffordabilty is for the total monthly housing costs not to exceed 30% of gross household income. For the state and federal governments this calculation is always made off of the median household income of the county; that is the number which matters in the context of block grants, tax credits, etc...

UPDATE 2025-01-27: The Mayor's Mondays website is now available.

In the first City Connection episode of 2025 newly elected Mayor David Lagrand has a pointed discussion about housing as well as introducing his planned Mayor's Mondays community conversation events.

The ZORI is the Zillow Observed Rent Index from, you guessed it, Zillow, Zillow provides a variety of data at their Data page. We periodically check in on the ZORI to see what it says about rents in Grand Rapids.