Housing Dashboard

Housing Forward | Region G
Regional Housing Partnership

The Data, Live. The Region, in Focus.

Housing doesn’t sit still. New households form. Homes sell. Wait lists grow. Builders break ground, or don’t. The Region G Housing Dashboard exists so that the people making decisions about housing in our region are always working from the most current picture available.

This is not a report published once and filed away. It is a living tool, updated regularly, built for the people who need to act on what it shows.

What You Can Explore

The dashboard brings together the most important data points from the 2025 Housing Needs Assessment, and keeps them current as conditions change. Here is what you will find:

Housing Gap Totals, Regional and by County

How many homes does our Region need? The dashboard shows the full regional gap, 7,554 rental units and 23,577 for-sale homes needed by 2029, and lets you drill down to see what each of the eight counties carries. Arenac through Saginaw, each with its own number and its own story.

Rental vs. For-Sale Breakdowns

The shortage looks different depending on who you are and what you need. The dashboard separates rental need from for-sale need so that developers, planners, and community organizations can see exactly where to focus. Rental gaps are most acute in Saginaw and Isabella Counties. The for-sale gap is largest in Saginaw and Bay. Both sides of the market need attention, and the dashboard shows both.

Cost Burden
Rates

When families spend more than 30% of their income on housing, everything else gets harder, groceries, healthcare, childcare, savings. The dashboard shows cost burden rates by county for both renters and homeowners, so you can see where families are most stretched and where intervention matters most.

Vacancy
Rates

A healthy rental market has a vacancy rate between 4% and 6%. Across Region G, the overall multifamily vacancy rate is 2.2%, and in some counties it is effectively zero. The dashboard tracks vacancy by county and housing type so you can see in real time how tight the market is and where new development would land in a market ready to absorb it.

Income Tier and Affordability Filters

Not every household needs the same thing. The dashboard lets you filter housing needs by income tier, from households earning below 60% of Area Median Income through workforce households earning up to 120% AMI and above. This is the tool that turns a regional number into a specific development opportunity or a targeted policy decision.

Development Opportunity Sites

More than 140 potential development sites have been identified across Region G, spanning residential, commercial, and mixed-use zoning in all eight counties. The dashboard maps those sites alongside housing need data, so developers and investors can see not just where the need is, but where the land exists to meet it.

How to Use It

The dashboard is designed to meet you where you are, whatever your purpose.

Local Official
or Planner

If you are a local official or planner, start by selecting your county. Look at your rental gap and your for-sale gap side by side. Use that picture to ground your next local policy conversation.

Developer
or Investor

If you are a developer or investor, use the development opportunity site map to identify parcels with the infrastructure, zoning, and demand profile that match your project type to understand what price points the market can support, and where the need is going unmet by what currently exists.

Employer

If you are an employer, look at the workforce housing data for your county. The dashboard shows the gap between what your workers earn and what housing costs, the numbers behind why recruiting is harder than it should be, and why some of your best people are commuting farther than anyone wants.

Community Member or Resident

If you are a community member or resident, start with your county’s overall gap number. Then explore cost burden rates to understand how many of your neighbors are spending more than they can afford just to stay housed. The data here is not abstract. It is about the people who live and work in your community right now.

A Note on the Data

The dashboard draws from the 2025 Housing Needs Assessment conducted by Bowen National Research, one of the nation’s leading housing research firms. That foundation, built from U.S. Census data, American Community Survey findings, local permit records, employer surveys, and on-the-ground field research, is updated as new data becomes available so that what you see reflects current conditions, not a snapshot from years past.

When the data changes, the dashboard changes with it.

Ready to Explore?

The numbers are here. Open the Dashboard!

Not sure what you are looking at or how to use it for a specific project or decision? [Reach out to Housing Forward directly.] We are here to help you get from data to action.

Data sourced from Bowen National Research, Housing Needs Assessment: Region G (2025), updated regularly to reflect current market conditions. Dashboard maintained by Housing Forward in partnership with MSHDA.