What the Forest Hills area covers
The district spans Ada Township, much of Cascade, and a slice of Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids Township. Ada is the riverfront side — larger, often wooded lots, a walkable village core, and a 10-mile, 12-to-15-minute downtown commute. Cascade sits closer to the airport and the M-6 beltway. Both run at a premium to the rest of Kent County, which is the point and the cost.
Because the attendance boundaries have been redrawn over the years and don't follow the obvious main roads, I don't trust the 'school district' field on a listing at face value — I've seen it wrong. The authoritative answer is the district's own boundary lookup for the exact parcel. Build your address list around the assigned buildings first and look at the houses second, not the other way around.
What homes in the Forest Hills area cost
The range is wide because the housing stock is. The entry point is a condo or attached home, roughly $300,000 to $475,000, often near the Ada village. Established 1980s-to-2000s single-family homes on mature lots run about $450,000 to $625,000. Move-up four-bedrooms, 2,600 to 3,800 square feet, land between $625,000 and $900,000. New construction and custom builds in subdivisions like Oxbow push $850,000 to $1.5 million, and Thornapple riverfront frontage runs $1.2 to $2 million at roughly $400 to $626 a square foot.
If you're coming from out of state or trading up from inside the metro, the practical move is to set the school as the constraint and the price band as the variable, then shop the buildings you want. The full Ada neighborhood guide goes deeper on the trade-offs.
More on the Ada area
Ada is the riverfront township east of Grand Rapids where larger lots, Forest Hills schools, and a 12-to-15-minute downtown commute all land in one place. It runs at a premium to the rest of Kent County, and I'd rather you understand the trade than be surprised by it.
Read the full Ada neighborhood guide →