Press & Media
Press room
We’re a Grand Rapids brokerage that maps and measures every neighborhood in West Michigan. If you’re working on a story about housing here — what things cost, what’s changing, or what a particular neighborhood is like — we’ll pull the numbers for you, on deadline, whether or not we end up in the piece.
Media contact
Jon Hazeltine
Broker Associate, Grand Rapids Real Estate Co. · Michigan license #6502432782
(616) 308-7946 · mobile, answered directly
Available for interviews, on-camera, and custom data pulls. If you need a number for a story today, call — don’t email.
Current story: Neighborhood Madness 2026
Sixteen Grand Rapids neighborhoods, a bracket, and four weeks of voting to decide which one rallies hardest. It runs September 15 through October 11, 2026. The champion neighborhood gets a sponsored block party; one individual who calls the bracket correctly wins $500 in gift cards to local businesses.
Fact sheet
- What it is
- A four-week, March-Madness-style bracket in which Grand Rapids residents vote for their own neighborhood, round by round, until one is crowned champion.
- The field
- 16 Grand Rapids neighborhoods, seeded into four regions — East Side, West Side, North Side and South Side.
- Who votes
- Anyone. Voting is free, takes one tap, and requires no login and no purchase. One vote per matchup.
- What the winning neighborhood gets
- A sponsored block party in the champion neighborhood.
- What an individual can win
- $500 in gift cards to local businesses, for the sharpest bracket — predict every matchup before voting opens.
- Who is behind it
- Grand Rapids Real Estate Co., a local brokerage. Each neighborhood in the field has a local agent as its champion, and neighborhood businesses sign on as boosters to rally their own blocks.
- Where it runs
- On grandrapids.realestate. The official vote lives on the site; social channels drive turnout.
Schedule
| Round of 16 | Voting opens Mon, Sept 15 · closes Sun, Sept 20 |
| Elite Eight | Sept 22 – Sept 27 |
| Final Four | Sept 29 – Oct 4 |
| Championship | Champion crowned by Oct 11 |
The field
Each links to that neighborhood’s page, with its own housing data.
Alger Heights · Belknap Lookout · Creston · East Hills · Eastown · Garfield Park · Heritage Hill · Highland Park · John Ball Park · Midtown · Northeast · Ottawa Hills · Roosevelt Park · Shawmut Hills · Southeast End · West Grand
Original data
We compute our own figures from recorded sales, assessor parcels and public datasets across 13 West Michigan counties. These are free to cite with attribution to Grand Rapids Real Estate Co. Underlying figures and additional cuts are available on request — including cuts we haven’t published.
- Every old neighborhood in Grand Rapids has at least doubled in ten years →
Ten years of recorded sales across the 16 bracket neighborhoods. Smallest ten-year gain +112%, typical gain +166%, computed over 1,445 recent recorded sales.
- All published studies →
Including the West Michigan lakefront premium — what the water actually costs, by price band.
Assets for coverage
- Bracket page — live standings, vote counts, and a share card sized for social.
- Official rules — eligibility, voting limits, and how the winner is decided.
- Leaderboard — who’s ahead, updated as votes come in.
- Photography — neighborhood photos appear on each neighborhood page and may be used with attribution. Higher-resolution files on request.
- Interviews — the broker, neighborhood champions, and participating business owners can be made available.
About us
Grand Rapids Real Estate Co. is a West Michigan brokerage built around places rather than listings. We maintain mapped, data-backed pages for roughly 15,900 neighborhoods, cities, townships, lakes and districts across 13 counties — computing walkability, drive times, schools, housing stock and price history from public records and our own analysis. The premise is that most people pick a place before they pick a house.
Press inquiries: Jon Hazeltine, (616) 308-7946 · jon@grandrapids.realestate