An election reporting snafu that triggered headlines in the Detroit Free Press and MLive. An ongoing conversation about housing accessibility and affordability in northern Michigan. A massive debate over a proposed extension to the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail. If you live in Leelanau County, you already know these stories were among the biggest conversation topics in 2024. What you might not know is just how Leelanau’s voting statistics broke down or how this year’s home sales compare to last year’s. Read on for the Leelanau Ticker’s annual end-of-the-year by-the-numbers recap.

The Election

3: Leelanau County Board of Commissioners seats that flipped from Democrat to Republican between election night reporting and final election certification. It had initially appeared that Democrats would have an unprecedented 6-1 majority on the county board, but that slipped to a 3-4 minority after the county clerk’s office discovered a batch of thousands of early votes had not been reported with election night totals. The error, which garnered statewide attention, also flipped races for county drain commissioner and township board seats.

1,371: The margin of victory, in votes, that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris enjoyed over President-Elect Donald Trump in Leelanau County. Despite Leelanau’s initial “blue wave” fading red in the county commission races, Leelanau’s final vote tallies for the presidential race still made it one of the few counties in the entire country to skew more left in 2024 than it did in 2020. According to certified totals, Harris beat Trump in Leelanau 9,406 votes to 8,035, or 53 percent to 45 percent. Comparatively, in 2020, outgoing President Joe Biden topped Trump by just 879 votes in Leelanau, 8,795 to 7,916.

For perspective on how notable Leelanau’s blue shift actually is, here’s TIME Magazine, from its Person of the Year write-up for Trump: “He became the first Republican in 20 years to win more votes than the Democrat, with 9 of 10 American counties increasing their support for Trump from 2020.”

89: Leelanau's voter turnout percentage for this fall’s election. 17,840 people in Leelanau cast ballots, out of a total pool of 20,094 registered voters. Glen Arbor Township saw the highest turnout, with 92 percent of its 865 registered voters casting ballots.

For perspective, the national turnout was just 63.9 percent, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

149: Leelanau voters who cast a ballot this election but left the presidential section blank.

244: Number of presidential votes cast in Leelanau County for candidates not named Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Five of those were write-in votes – four of them for Peter Sonski, the fifth for Claudia De La Cruz.

8,359: Leelanau residents who voted straight-party ticket in this election. Republicans were more likely to do so (4,252) than Democrats (4,033).

10,591: Number of Leelanau residents who either voted early (3,236) or via mail/absentee ballot (7,355). Comparatively, just 7,249 (about 40.6 percent) came out for in-person voting on Election Day itself. 

Real Estate

Last year, we sat down with Jonathan Oltersdorf of Suttons Bay-based Oltersdorf Realty to get an end-of-the-year rundown of real estate numbers in Leelanau County. This year, we’re doing the same – and comparing 2024’s numbers to 2023’s. (Note: All 2024 numbers provided below include just single-family homes and are as of Sunday, December 22.)

331: Homes sold in Leelanau County in 2024 – down 7.8 percent from 2023’s total of 359.

$278,336,799: This year’s total home sales volume in Leelanau County, which actually beats last year’s final tally, $273,755,711, by 1.67 percent.

$840,897: Average sale price for a single-family Leelanau home in 2024. If you’re wondering how this year could see 28 fewer sales than 2023 but still beat last year’s sales volume number by more than $4.5 million, it’s because this year’s average sale price outstripped 2023’s ($762,551) by a whopping 10.3 percent.

$615,000: Leelanau’s median sale price, also up significantly from last year’s ($585,000).

77: Leelanau homes that surpassed the $1 million price point this year, compared to 63 in 2023.

4: Leelanau houses that sold for less than $200,000, down from eight in 2023.

$4,598,600: The sale price for the most expensive house sold in Leelanau County in 2024, which Oltersdorf describes as “a newly constructed Lake Michigan waterfront home off of M-22 between Leland and Northport.” That’s about $350,000 more than last year’s top seller (a Glen Arbor home on Lake Michigan that sold for $4.25 million) and nearly $700,000 more than 2022’s winner (a 77-acre estate in Bingham Township that sold for $3.19 million).

$125,000: The year’s cheapest home sale price in Leelanau County, which Oltersdorf calls “a fixer-upper near Perrins Landing.” The other three sub-$200,000 houses in the county, he says, “included two 700-square-foot condos in Empire and a fixer-upper in Maple City.”

149: All-cash sales, accounting for about 45 percent of Leelanau’s total home sales for 2024. That’s down substantially from last year’s 179, or 50 percent of sales.

62: Existing homes now on the market. That number “is still historically very low, at around a 2-3-month inventory,” according to Oltersdorf.

Other County Numbers

1,750+: People who signed a petition opposing the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail’s proposed Segment 9 extension via the website of Sleeping Bear Naturally, a local citizens group that rallied against the project. The National Park Service has since halted design work on the segment.

308: Days elapsed between February 8, when former County Administrator Deb Allen agreed to step down from the role; and December 12, when county commissioners decided to offer the job to incoming administrator James Dyer. In between, Richard Lewis stepped in to bridge the gap as interim administrator, a role he's held for 266 days as of today (Monday).

24: Tennis matches won by Glen Lake High School senior Michael Houtteman this season, en route to his Division 4 state championship in the No. 3 singles division. Houtteman is the school’s first-ever individual state champion in the sport, and led the Lakers to their first regional boys tennis title in 22 years. The team finished second overall at the state finals.

29,340: Total checkouts recorded in 2024 at the Leland Public Library. According to a recent Facebook post, the library had 28,530 visitors this year, added 1,183 new items to its collection, and hosted 117 events or programs.

13,000: Volunteer hours tallied by Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes and its 450 volunteers. That organization helps support the National Lakeshore, which recorded approximately 1.6 million visitors in 2024.

6,823: People who participated in programs put on by the Suttons Bay-based Inland Seas Education Association (ISEA) this year, across 289 programs at eight different ports.

$44,250: Final fundraising total for the Fishtown Preservation Society on Giving Tuesday, compared to its initial goal for the day of $35,000.

212: Acres of land at the site formerly planned for the Timber Shores RV park that changed hands this week after a preservation campaign that lasted more than a year. Approximately 188 acres were deeded to the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, while another 24 were deeded to the nonprofit New Community Vision. More details can be found here.