Where did Leelanau County end up in terms of home sales in 2023, particularly in the upper echelons of sale prices? How did visitor numbers shake out at Sleeping Bear Dunes, especially after a 2022 slowdown? What’s the status of Leelanau’s new fiber internet network? These are just a few of the questions answered below, in Leelanau Ticker’s by-the-numbers rundown of 2023 – our final story of the year.

Real estate

We’ve written extensively – this year especially – about Leelanau County’s housing shortage, the efforts to address it, and how the dearth of homes is causing prices to spike. To get a better handle on how the market shifted in 2023 – and to find out whether Leelanau real estate is falling out of reach for all but the wealthiest buyers – we asked Jonathan Oltersdorf of Suttons Bay-based Oltersdorf Realty to help us crunch some numbers. Here’s what he shared. (Note: All 2023 numbers provided below are year-to-date as of Thursday, December 14.)

362: Homes sold in Leelanau County in 2023. That number means 2023 will beat 2022 in terms of total home sales. Last year, 357 homes were sold in the county between January 1 and December 31.

$265,175,711: This year’s total home sales volume in Leelanau County. That’s right around where sales volume landed for the whole year in 2022, when Leelanau’s market tallied $267,209,220 in total sales volume.

$723,530: Leelanau’s average home sale price in 2023. That’s actually decreased slightly from 2022, when the average homebuyer was paying $748,485.

$551,500: The median home sale price in Leelanau County this year. Where this year’s average sale price went down about $25,000 compared to 2022, the median sale price went in the other direction: Last year’s median was $525,000.

40: Homes in Leelanau County this year that sold for over $1 million. That represents 11 percent of all home sales in the county. Last year, 34 homes sold for $1 million or more.

$4,250,000: The sale price for the most expensive house sold in Leelanau County in 2023 – a Glen Arbor home situated on Lake Michigan. That’s more than a quarter-million more than last year’s top sale, a $3,910,000 house in Bingham Township that sat on a 77-acre property.

6: Homes in Leelanau County that sold for under $200,000 in 2023 – the same as last year.

$140,000: The lowest sale price recorded for a Leelanau County home in 2023, for a condominium near Timberlee. Last year’s bargain seller? A $125,000 “fixer-upper” near Sugar Loaf.

186: All-cash sales this year, or 51.38 percent of Leelanau’s total residential real estate transactions. That’s up significantly from last year, when there were 149 all-cash sales out of 357 total transactions, or 41.73 percent.

65: Homes currently on the market, which Oltersdorf says represents “2-3 months of inventory.” It’s the highest inventory of available homes for sale in the county since 2020.

46%: The share of residential parcels in Leelanau that are occupied as a primary residence.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

The National Lakeshore clocked a visitor tally of 1,718,696 in 2020 – the highest yearly total in the park’s history. 2021 broke that record, with 1,722,955 visitors. 2022, though, was a different animal: With festivals and events back on the schedule and the world mostly back to normal, parks across the country saw a drop in visitors. Sleeping Bear Dunes was no exception, seeing its lowest full-year visitor count in eight years. Did 2023 continue that trend? Here’s what the numbers show.

1,583,651: Total visits tracked at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore during the first 11 months of 2023 (December data is not yet available). That’s already higher than last year’s total – which was 1,501,117 for the full 12 months – but will still fall well short of the 2020 and 2021 numbers.

57 million: The all-time visitor milestone Sleeping Bear Dunes will hit this month.

174,744: Visitors to the Dunes in September 2023. Need proof that northern Michigan had an exceptionally nice fall? That tally is not only way higher than last year’s September count (147,031) but also well above the all-time September average (119,984).

11,425: Volunteer hours tallied this year by Friends of Sleeping Bear, the nonprofit that partners with the National Lakeshore in “protecting resources and heightening visitor experiences” in the park. Per Friends of Sleeping Bear, the organization welcomed 316 new volunteers this year and saw “a record number of volunteers support the adopt-a-trail, adopt-a-beach, and adopt-a-river programs” it operates.

The Leelanau County fiber buildout

Point Broadband, the company bulding out Leelanau County’s new fiber network, connected its first users this year. We touched base with Daniel Sullivan, Point Broadband’s general manager of Michigan markets, to find out how the buildout is going and what 2024 should bring.

1,700: The approximate number of Leelanau County homes that now have the option to connect to the new Point Broadband fiber network. Per Sullivan, that number “represents about 22 percent of the overall project complete.” The total project, which Sullivan says “encompasses about 7,500 homes,” is expected to be complete by the end of 2024.

While Sullivan declines to share how many customers have actually signed up for Point Broadband service, he tells the Leelanau Ticker the company is “getting great acceptance from the community, meaning they’re signing up at an extremely fast pace.”

850: Homes along Point Broadband’s completed fiber network segments that previously “did not have access to broadband services, terrestrial broadband services, cable, or any other types of services,” per Sullivan. “They may have had internet access from satellite or something like that, but not land terrestrial.” Those 850 homes, Sullivan adds, represent about a quarter of the totally unserved residences that the county was hoping to reach with this fiber buildout.

$4,998,637: Grant dollars coming Point Broadband’s way from the state’s first round of Realizing Opportunity with Broadband Infrastructure Networks (ROBIN) grants. Sullivan says the money will help the company navigate past some roadblocks it’s hit with the Leelanau County project this year. “We ran into some overruns, which is why we had a brief pause a couple of over the last couple of months,” he explains. “But ROBIN just became a big additional funding source to help us continue and expand the project.” Thanks to the ROBIN money, Sullivan anticipates Point Broadband will be able to keep its target of finishing the Leelanau buildout by the end of 2024.

500: The approximate number of extra homes in Leelanau County that Sullivan expects Point Broadband will be able to serve thanks to the ROBIN money. Those homes weren’t included in the original buildout plan.

Other assorted Leelanau 2023 stats

1: As in, “one and only.” MLive reported this year that the retail chain Dollar General had a presence in every Michigan county except one: Leelanau County. That statistic is notable, given that Dollar General has more than 19,000 locations in the United States and is the most prevalent retail brand in the entire country.

3,000: Miles traveled by the Alliance, the Inland Seas Education Association’s new three-masted, 105-foot schooner, to reach harbor in Suttons Bay. The vessel made the trek to the Great Lakes from Yorktown, Virginia, where it had been used as a charter and day sailing vessel since 2005. The boat arrived in northern Michigan in July, and Inland Seas has already put it to work for educational purposes.

4,479: Trees planted this year by the Leelanau Conservancy.

1,721: Points scored by the Glen Lake High School girls basketball team during the 2022-23 season, en route to their Division 4 state championship victory in March. Across 28 games, the Lakers recorded a 26-2 record and tallied an average of more than 61 point per game. Leading the charge were Maddie Bradford and Ruby Hogan, seniors who both closed out their high school basketball careers with more than 1,000 points. All that scoring power led Glen Lake to its first state title in girls basketball since 1978, with the Lakers topping Baraga 60-43 in the March 18 championship.

$4,000: Let’s end the year on a feel-good note for you, our Leelanau Ticker readers. On November 13, we ran a story about the efforts by owners of Northport’s Hallstedt Homestead Cherries to raise $41,000 to help orchard manager Dick McCulloch pay for an extensive dental restoration treatment. The folks at HH Cherries let us know that they “received over $4,000 after the article went live,” including more than $2,000 in contributions on November 13 alone. The fundraising campaign now has only about $3,500 left to raise, compared to the $13,000 gap that remained when we ran the original article.