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Rhinoceros Media

Series · 11 posts

The Lansing Housing Crisis

Concentration of ownership, rent acceleration, and the public-housing sale: the documentary record of how Lansing's housing market changed between 2019 and 2026.

  1. Housing

    Lansing Is Now Michigan's Fastest-Rising Rental Market

    Rhinoceros NewsroomMar 13, 2026

    Four independent data sources, Zillow, HUD, the Census ACS, and Realtor.com, confirm Lansing's rents are rising faster than any other metro in Michigan. Zillow's Observed Rent Index shows Lansing rents up 25.3 percent since January 2022, ahead of Grand Rapids (21.1 percent), Ann Arbor (19.2 percent), and Detroit (16.9 percent). HUD's Fair Market Rents recorded a 12.5 percent single-year jump in Ingham County's two-bedroom rate, and three Lansing ZIP codes show double-digit annual increases.

  2. HousingMoney

    Who Owns Lansing? 24 Entities Control 946 Rental Parcels

    Rhinoceros NewsroomMar 13, 2026

    Of Lansing's 42,175 tax parcels, 29.2 percent of residential parcels are non-owner-occupied and 10.4 percent of those rental-proxy parcels are owned by someone in another state. Twenty-four mega-landlords with 20 or more parcels each control 946 parcels (8.3 percent of all rental-proxy housing). The largest single residential landlord is SK Lansing LDHA, a Southfield entity holding 209 parcels acquired from the Lansing Housing Commission. California leads at 308, Florida 193, Texas 67.

  3. Housing

    Lansing's Housing Crisis: Renters

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 1, 2026

    70 percent of Lansing renter households do not earn enough to cover housing and basic needs using a residual-income measure that counts food, transportation, medical, childcare, and utilities. Single-parent renter families with two or three children fall below the threshold at 95 to 97 percent. Lansing rents have risen 25.3 percent since January 2022, faster than any other Michigan metro, and the federal 30 percent cost-burden standard undercounts Lansing renter stress by 18 points.

  4. Housing

    Lansing's Housing Crisis: By the Tract

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 1, 2026

    Lansing's 17 lowest-income census tracts, each with median household income under $50,000, are 52.5 percent nonwhite on average with a 51.7 percent hardship rate, and 15 of 17 are classified as food-apartheid areas. The five highest-income tracts are 28 percent nonwhite with a 26.6 percent hardship rate. The single D-grade redlined tract from the federal HOLC's 1935 Lansing map today has a median income of $41,495, a 56.6 percent nonwhite population, and a 66.7 percent hardship rate.

  5. Housing

    Lansing's Housing Crisis: Wages Fall Short

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 1, 2026

    Lansing's two largest low-wage occupation groups, food service and personal care, pay $16.73 to $17.16 per hour at median, while a single adult needs $21.74 per hour to cover housing and basic needs. Roughly 65,000 metro-area workers, nearly a third of local employment, work in occupations whose median wages do not clear the threshold for any household with children. 22,000 Ingham County households held medical debt in collections until the county spent $250,000 to erase it in 2024.

  6. Housing

    Lansing's Housing Crisis: Homeowners

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 5, 2026

    Lansing has the highest property tax rate in Ingham County at 62.6 mills, 12 to 24 percent higher than any surrounding jurisdiction. Homes that sold for under $50,000 are assessed at 188 percent of their sale-price-based value, nearly twice what Michigan's statutory formula allows, while homes over $200,000 are assessed at 91 percent. 40 percent of Lansing homeowners do not earn enough to cover housing and basic needs, and the median sale price rose 37 percent in five years.

  7. HousingGovernment

    Lansing's Homeowner Permit Rule for Tagged Structures

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 22, 2026

    On January 9, 2026, the Lansing Building Safety Office issued a two-page administrative policy barring homeowners from pulling repair permits on red-tagged property until a licensed contractor removes the tag. The City Council never voted on it, the policy is not posted on the city's Building Safety or Permits pages, and Code Compliance did not provide a written copy to Council Member Spadafore through at least the April 16, 2026 Public Safety Committee meeting. Detroit allows homeowner repairs.

  8. GovernmentHousing

    The Shuffle Lease Does Not Oblige the City to Sell

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 22, 2026

    At the April 20, 2026 Committee of the Whole, Lansing City Attorney Greg Venker confirmed on the record that paragraph (f) of the 2020 Lansing Shuffle lease does not obligate the City Council to sell the building. Council Member Ryan Kost read aloud the lease provision that "initiation of such proceedings by the City is not a promise or covenant that sale of the Building and Premises will result," and Venker confirmed: "Correct, that a prior council had bound them to."

  9. Housing

    Five Patterns Inside Lansing's Housing Crisis

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 24, 2026

    Five patterns repeat across Lansing's rental market: code-violation fines below one month's rent, eviction filings used as routine business activity, mass eviction immediately preceding a profitable sale, holding-company fragmentation hiding operator-scale portfolios behind small LLCs, and code enforcement that stops at every municipal line. Three Lansing-area registered agents account for at least 488 rental parcels across 84 LLCs, and one landlord with 18 code cases has not lost a license.

  10. Housing

    Lansing's Public Housing: From 833 Units to 66

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 25, 2026

    Between 2020 and 2024, the Lansing Housing Commission's public-housing portfolio collapsed from 833 units to 66, a 92 percent reduction. 202 of those former public-housing homes were sold to a single Michigan LLC for $14.62 million across four closings between April 2023 and February 2025. The buyer's name was changed from "SK Investments Group LLC" to "Red Michigan Holdings LLC" eight months before the first closing, breaking name-based searches. Of about 40 interested tenants, 8 qualified.

  11. HousingMoney

    From Public Housing to Wall Street Mortgages: The Lansing Scattered-Site Sale

    Rhinoceros NewsroomApr 25, 2026

    In April 2023, the Lansing Housing Commission completed the sale of 202 scattered-site public-housing homes to a Michigan LLC formed thirteen months earlier, for $14.62 million across four closings. The buyer was renamed from SK Investments Group LLC to Red Michigan Holdings LLC eight months before the first closing, breaking name-based searches. Within nine months, $8.73 million in mortgages were assigned through Goldman Sachs to U.S. Bank Trust as trustee of Legacy Mortgage Asset Trust 2024.

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