A buyer who put an offer on a Torch Lake home this spring called their agent with a plan already worked out. Rent the place three or four weeks a summer, ideally through July and August, and use that income to offset half the mortgage. By the time the title work was underway, that plan was dead. The parcel sat inside Torch Lake Township's R-1 residential district, and Township Zoning Ordinance Section 2.24 has prohibited short-term rentals there since July 2014. No grace period, no grandfather clause for a buyer who didn't know to ask.
That single ordinance is the reason two numbers about this lake can both be true at once this fall: the median list price is down, and the best frontage is still moving in weeks, not months.
The Rule That's Been on the Books Since 2014
Torch Lake Township's zoning code is public record, and the relevant section is not buried. Section 2.24 bars short-term rental use in the R-1, R-2, and R-3 residential districts, which cover the bulk of the lake's private waterfront. It has stood unchanged for over a decade. Any buyer running the numbers on a Torch Lake purchase who assumes they can list it on a rental platform during peak boating season needs to confirm, parcel by parcel, whether that assumption survives contact with the township's own ordinance before they close.
That confirmation matters because the rule does not apply lake-wide. Neighboring townships include Banks, Forest Home, and Helena. The Village of Elk Rapids, at the north end of the watershed, runs its own capped licensing program instead of a ban, with roughly 61 licensed units representing about 7.7 percent of the village's housing stock. These places are all technically on or near the same body of water.
| Jurisdiction | Short-term rental posture |
|---|---|
| Torch Lake Township (R-1, R-2, R-3) | Banned since July 2014 under Zoning Ordinance Section 2.24 |
| Banks, Forest Home, Helena Townships | Check applicable local rules |
| Village of Elk Rapids | Capped licensing program, roughly 61 units, about 7.7% of village housing stock |
What Getting Filtered Out of the Buyer Pool Does to Price
A ban like Torch Lake Township's does not just remove a revenue line from a spreadsheet. It removes a category of buyer from the bidding.
Anyone whose purchase decision depends on projected rental income, the investor modeling seasonal cash flow against a mortgage, generally has no reason to compete for frontage inside those residential districts. What's left in the buyer pool are people who intend to use the home themselves or hold it as a long-term family property. That group prices things differently than an investor does. They are not discounting a purchase against a rental pro forma. They are paying for the house they want, on the shoreline they want, and they are far more sensitive to condition, staging, and correct pricing than to the theoretical yield a spreadsheet might project.
That distinction matters right now because the aggregate numbers, read without it, look like a market in trouble.
Now Look at What's Happening to the Median
Through the summer of 2026, the median list price for homes on Torch Lake sat at roughly $2.7 million, down about 5 percent from a year earlier. Price per square foot came in near $1,150, and depending on which tracking snapshot you pull, that figure was down somewhere between 5 and 11 percent year over year. Median days on market for lakefront listings stretched to around 298 days, nearly ten months.
Read on its own, that combination reads like softening demand. Falling price, falling price per square foot, lengthening time to sell.
Except inventory across the entire 19-mile lake sat at only about 29 to 30 active listings that same summer. A market that thin does not usually produce falling prices. Scarce supply with real demand behind it tends to hold price, not lose it. Something else is driving the aggregate down, and it is not a lack of buyers.
The Two Torch Lakes
What the median actually captures by late summer is a mix of two very different groups of listings.
The first group is premium, correctly priced, well-presented frontage, sandy bottom, gradual slope, clean permit history on the dock, typically concentrated toward the south end near the sandbar and the Torch River. Those homes still move quickly, because the buyer pool for that specific product, use-focused families and legacy buyers rather than investors, knows exactly what they're looking at and doesn't need much convincing.
The second group is everything still sitting. Overpriced homes. Rocky or mucky frontage priced as if it were sandy. Listings that missed the spring window and have been quietly aging on the market since. By August, the listings still active are disproportionately drawn from this second group, because the first group already sold months ago. Average that mix together and the aggregate median and days-on-market figures will look weak, even though the actual demand for the right property at the right price hasn't moved.
This is why a single lake-wide median is close to useless for a specific parcel. It's not a soft market. It's a market with a small number of listings that already sold fast, blended with a small number of listings that have been sitting since spring, and the blend lands somewhere in the middle that describes neither.
Why September Is a Strange Month to Trust the Median
Torch Lake is, at its core, a summer lake market. Buyer energy peaks well before the leaves turn, driven by the boating season, the sandbar, and the window when a family can actually use the property they're viewing. By the time September arrives, the homes still on the market are, almost by definition, the ones that didn't find a buyer during that peak window.
That doesn't mean nothing moves in the shoulder season. A fully furnished, turnkey lakefront estate in Kewadin came on the market again just this month, priced near $5.5 million with the dock, hoists, and boats included in the sale. Sellers with a genuinely exceptional property are still testing demand into September, and buyers who move decisively on the right listing at the right price are not waiting for spring either. But for the bulk of listings, a home still active in September has already been passed over once, and that history is worth asking about directly rather than assuming away.
What to Actually Check Before You Assume Anything
- Confirm which township the specific parcel sits in, and whether that township has a short-term rental ordinance, a cap, or no dedicated rule at all. The line between Torch Lake Township and its neighbors is not always obvious on a map.
- Ask how long the listing has actually been active, not just how it's priced today. A home in month nine of a listing carries a different negotiating posture than one in week two.
- Weigh frontage quality over frontage length. Sandy bottom with a gradual slope commands a premium over rocky or mucky shoreline at the same footage, and that gap shows up in price more reliably than an extra ten feet of frontage does.
- Treat the lake-wide median as context, not a comparable. With only about thirty active listings spread across three counties' worth of townships and shoreline types, no single number describes any specific parcel well.
A Few Direct Questions
Does the short-term rental ban apply to the whole lake? No. It's specific to Torch Lake Township's R-1, R-2, and R-3 residential districts. Neighboring townships include Banks, Forest Home, and Helena, and Elk Rapids runs a capped licensing program rather than a ban. Confirm the township for your specific parcel before assuming a rule that applies elsewhere also applies to you.
Does a falling median mean this is a bad time to buy on Torch Lake? Not necessarily, and not evenly. The median reflects a small, mixed pool of listings, some that sold fast during peak season and some that have been sitting since spring. A falling aggregate number can coexist with strong, fast-moving demand for the right property. What it should do is prompt a direct question about how long any specific listing has actually been on the market and why.
If you're trying to figure out what a specific piece of Torch Lake frontage is actually worth right now, not what the lake-wide median suggests, that's a conversation worth having before you write an offer or set a list price. Jennifer Gaston works Torch Lake and the surrounding Antrim County shoreline year-round, township by township. Request a free home valuation and get a read on your property that accounts for its actual frontage, condition, and zoning, not just the average.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
