How to read Michiana realty data
Mishawaka's median sale price jumped 30.3% in a year. Its typical home value rose 5.2%. Both numbers are true, both describe the same town in the same month, and anyone who quotes one without understanding the other will misread the market by a factor of six. This site publishes Michiana realty data every month — town pages, reports, county tables — and this guide is the manual for it: what each metric measures, where the numbers disagree and why, and how a buyer or seller turns the dashboard into a decision.
The value metrics: ZHVI vs. median sale price
Typical home value (Zillow's ZHVI) estimates what the middle home in town is worth — every house, including the ones that never traded. It's smoothed and seasonally adjusted, which makes it steady and slow: the best single number for "what are homes worth here and which way is that heading." June 2026: $202,069 in South Bend, $425,409 in Granger.
Median sale price (Redfin) reports the middle closed transaction — real money, but only from homes that happened to sell that month. It moves with the mix of what sold: one month heavy in lakefront closings or light in starter homes swings the median with zero change in any house's value.
Mishawaka is the working example: a $245,000 May median (+30.3%) against a $217,102 typical value (+5.2%). Sixty-three homes sold; the mix ran expensive. Nobody's Mishawaka ranch gained thirty percent — and a seller pricing off that headline will sit unsold, while a buyer scared off by it walked away from a 5% market. The rule: value trends come from ZHVI; deal evidence comes from actual sold comps; the median sale price is a mood ring — read it with the sample size in view.
The same caution scales down. Edwardsburg's May median rose 62.5% — on one sale. Town pages print sales counts next to medians for exactly this reason: below roughly 20 sales a month, read medians in three-month bundles from the report archive, or lean entirely on the smoothed value line.
The speed-and-supply metrics
Median days on market — listing to accepted contract, for homes that sold. It's the leverage gauge: 8 days in Goshen means sellers barely finish the paperwork; 120 in Benton Harbor means buyers set the tempo. The full table and playbook get their own guide.
Active inventory and new listings — supply's level and its faucet. The trend outranks the level: South Bend's 220 active listings mean little alone, but down 12.7% year over year in a 22-day market, they explain the market's tightness. Watch the two speedometers together — inventory rising while days lengthen is a market loosening in real time, which is precisely this year's Granger story (inventory +63.8%, days on market up to 21, price up just 2.6%). One line in a monthly report told Granger sellers more than any headline: supply is arriving faster than price is.
Rents (ZORI) — typical asking rent, the tenant-side mirror of ZHVI. Paired with values, it yields the price-to-rent ratios that drive the rent-or-buy decision and the landlord math.
The county layer — ZHVI, the FHFA house-price index, and unemployment for all seven core counties. The FHFA index matters as a second opinion from a different method (repeat sales of the same homes): when it and Zillow agree — as in Marshall County this year, +8.2% and +7.0% respectively — the trend is trustworthy. Unemployment (3.5% in Marshall and Kosciusko, 5.3% in Berrien) is the slow gauge under everything: paychecks are what ultimately pay Michiana mortgages, a point the Elkhart page makes about RV-industry cycles.
The mortgage rate — the one number on the dashboard that isn't local. We publish the 30-year fixed from FRED (6.58% in late July) because it sets every buyer's payment math and therefore every seller's audience size. Read it as a level, not a forecast: within the mid-6% band that has framed this whole year, month-to-month wiggles shift a typical South Bend payment by amounts worth knowing and not worth timing. The moment it leaves that band in either direction, expect the speed metrics above to react first — rate moves reach days-on-market before they reach prices.
Reading the dashboard as one instrument
The metrics answer different questions, so the skill is asking in order:
- Which way is value heading? ZHVI trend, town and county.
- Who has leverage this month? Days on market plus inventory trend.
- What will a deal cost? Sold comps you pull yourself, sanity-checked against the median and its sample size.
- What's the carrying context? Mortgage rate (6.58% late July, the mid-6% band all year) and, for the long view, county employment.
A seller running that sequence in South Bend this summer reads: values +6.9%, market tight and fast, comps firm — price confidently at the market, prepare for a quick contract. The same sequence in Granger reads: values +4.1% but supply surging — price sharp, skip the wait-for-spring reflex. A buyer inverts the same facts: urgency in South Bend, patience and data-forward offers in Granger. Same dashboard, four different correct answers — that's the point.
What this data can't do
Honesty about the toolbox: these are town-level statistics, and you're buying or selling one house. No index knows your block, your school boundary, or your kitchen — that's what running comps and walking houses are for. The numbers also arrive with a lag (values through June, closed sales through May, in the current cycle), describe the recent past rather than the future, and predict nothing. What they reliably do is strip the folklore out of the two most expensive negotiations most households ever run — replacing "the market is crazy right now" with a number, a trend, and a sample size.
Every figure on this site traces to a published source — Zillow Research, Redfin Data Center, FRED, FHFA, methodology on the About page — and every one refreshes monthly. Bookmark your town, read the report when it lands, and walk into your next deal as the best-informed person at the table. That's the entire purpose of publishing Michiana realty data in the first place.
Frequently asked questions
Why do Zillow's value and the median sale price disagree?
They measure different things: ZHVI estimates every home's value, smoothed; the median sale price reports the middle of whatever happened to close that month, so it swings with the mix of homes sold. In small markets a single unusual sale can move the median double digits — always check the sales count beside it.
Which number should I use to price my home?
Start from your own sold comps — 5–10 recent sales comparable to your house — then sanity-check direction against your town's ZHVI trend and pace against its days on market. The town-level median sale price is context, not a price.
How current is the data on this site?
Refreshed monthly: home values and rents currently run through June 2026, closed-sale data through May 2026, and mortgage rates through late July — each page notes its data month, and the report archive keeps every prior month.
What's the fastest way to size up a Michiana town's market?
Three numbers on its town page: the typical-value trend (direction), median days on market (leverage), and the inventory change (what's coming). Together they tell you whether to hurry, haggle, or hold — before you've seen a single listing.