Moving to Grand Rapids
A ten-section brochure for anyone deciding from out of state: the city and its numbers, what to do here, a utilities table, stage-by-stage checklists, and the Michigan property-tax rule that catches newcomers.
What it is
A relocation brochure that leads with the housing
Ten sections. The city, the numbers, what to do here — and then the parts most relocation guides leave out entirely, because they're the parts that cost money rather than the parts that sell a city.
Built for someone deciding from several states away, with a checklist for each stage: before you fly in, the visit, under contract, and before move-in.
What's inside
Ten sections
Why Grand Rapids, and the numbers. Six stat cards — supply, days on market, price growth, transfer tax, and how far the lake really is.
Things to do. Museums, outdoors, food and drink, live and local — the actual institutions, not adjectives.
The market you're entering. What roughly one month of supply does to a buyer's timeline, and why pre-approval matters more here than where you're coming from.
The Michigan tax rule nobody mentions. Uncapping — why the tax figure on the listing is the seller's bill and not yours, and the one free phone call that tells you what yours will be.
Choosing an area. A table of public sources — the assessor, the state school portal, the planning department — so you evaluate areas against your own criteria instead of someone's adjectives.
Coming for a visit, and moving in. How to spend two days here, plus a utilities table covering electric, gas, water, trash, internet, and the Secretary of State.
Why it reads differently
No neighborhood recommendations, on purpose
Most relocation guides sort buyers into areas by lifestyle — a version of steering that's illegal under the Fair Housing Act and Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act when it's based on who lives somewhere.
This one hands you the data sources instead. That's the legal answer, and it's the more useful one: my criteria aren't yours, and a tax millage table beats an adjective every time.
Work through it here
The checklist
Tick things off as you go — it saves in this browser, so you can come back to it over the weeks this actually takes.
0 of 18 done
Your progress saves in this browser — come back to it.
Before you fly in
The visit
Under contract
Moving and utilities
Take it with you
Download the Moving to Grand Rapids guide
A printable version you can write on, bring to a lender, or hand to whoever you're making this decision with.
Enter your email and the worksheet is yours right away. No waiting on an inbox.
For more information
The longer argument behind this one is in the relocation post.