Michiana Housing Market Report — February 2026
February's headline was the rate: the 30-year fixed averaged 5.98%, dipping below 6% for the first stretch in months. Values kept climbing beneath it — the typical St. Joseph County home reached $227,793 (+3.8% year over year), Berrien County $278,178 (+3.4%). Home-value data runs through January 2026; closed sales through December 2025.
Town by town
- South Bend — $156,500 median sale price (+8.7% YoY), 26 days on market, inventory down 13.2%. The city's entry-level price point kept absorbing whatever listed.
- Mishawaka — $191,000 median (+9.8%), and homes moved in 23 days.
- Elkhart — the outlier: a $174,000 median, down 3.3% year over year, with days on market stretching to 33 and inventory up 4.8%. December closings are a small, choppy sample — but Elkhart was the month's soft spot.
- Granger — $402,495 median (+9.5%): the premium market's December closings crossed the $400K line, though 43-day marketing times showed winter's drag on the top tier.
- Niles — a $213,528 median, up 47.3% year over year. A number that extreme in a town closing a handful of homes a month is a composition effect, not a repricing — a few larger homes closing together. The value story (+2.7% on Zillow's smoothed measure) was the honest signal.
The takeaway
Sub-6% money met single-digit inventory declines almost everywhere. The spring question was already visible in February: would cheaper rates pull out enough sellers to feed the demand they'd create?
What to watch
Whether the rate dip holds (spoiler: it didn't), and whether Elkhart's soft December was noise or trend.
Sources: Zillow Research (home values), Redfin Data Center (sales), FRED / Freddie Mac (rates). Methodology on the About page.
Archive edition: compiled retrospectively from current (revised) Zillow, Redfin, and FRED source data for this month.
Town-by-town data
| Town | Typical home value | YoY | 5-yr trend | Median sale price | Days on mkt | Inventory |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| South Bend, IN | $195K | +4.1% | $156K | 26 | 237 | |
| Mishawaka, IN | $211K | +2.3% | $191K | 23 | 71 | |
| Elkhart, IN | $228K | +5.0% | $174K | 33 | 88 | |
| Granger, IN | $420K | +4.2% | $402K | 43 | 52 | |
| Niles, MI | $209K | +2.7% | $214K | 44 | 33 | |
| Goshen, IN | $280K | +4.7% | $226K | 34 | 31 | |
| Michigan City, IN | $192K | +3.1% | $190K | 54 | 96 | |
| La Porte, IN | $278K | +3.8% | $170K | 37 | 50 | |
| St. Joseph, MI | $337K | +2.8% | $228K | 84 | 31 | |
| Benton Harbor, MI | $155K | +0.5% | $116K | 83 | 33 | |
| New Buffalo, MI | $661K | +6.9% | $475K | 58 | 13 | |
| Three Oaks, MI | $334K | +7.2% | $362K | 49 | 16 | |
| Dowagiac, MI | $228K | +5.9% | $88K | 21 | 19 | |
| Edwardsburg, MI | $309K | +3.8% | $345K | 103 | 3 | |
| Osceola, IN | $291K | +3.3% | $259K | 17 | 6 | |
| Nappanee, IN | $298K | +5.8% | $300K | 7 | 7 | |
| Middlebury, IN | $384K | +7.0% | $336K | 28 | 7 | |
| Bremen, IN | $280K | +4.3% | $260K | 19 | 4 | |
| Plymouth, IN | $244K | +3.8% | $189K | 41 | 7 | |
| Warsaw, IN | $277K | +2.2% | $238K | 49 | 40 |