Clarkston, Michigan.
Typical home $428,845 (+3.0% in a year), asking rent $1,830 (+4.7%). Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,186 (+111%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $12,592 +3%
- $416,253$428,845 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $82,033 +24%
- $346,812$428,845 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Clarkston$2,251
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Clarkston, MI rose 3.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Clarkston, MI rose 4.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Clarkston runs $1,335/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,417 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,165 a month against $1,830 rent: a $2,251 mortgage payment, plus $455 property tax and $459 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Clarkston
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$3,165
- Renting$1,830
- Mortgage only$2,251
Property tax · $455/mo 1.27% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Oakland County, MI
Insurance & upkeep · $459/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Clarkston, Oakland County, Michigan
The Census does not count Clarkston on its own, so the figures here are Oakland County's. Half the county's households earn more than $97,760 a year and half less; 8% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 73% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 27% are rented. Unemployment in Oakland County was 4.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Oakland County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Clarkston is a town in Oakland County, Michigan, where most homes are lived in by their owners and household incomes are high across the county. Few people fall below the poverty line, and many adults hold a college degree. The town has cold, snowy winters, with January the coldest month, and warm summers, with July the warmest.
Work. Residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, manufacturing, professional and business services, and retail shops. Unemployment across the county has risen over the past year, and the number of jobs has dipped a little. A fair share of residents work from home, and many others commute by car.
Things to do. The Clinton River runs in or beside town, so it is one of the closest places to walk or spend time outdoors. The Holocaust Memorial Center, a museum, is a longer drive away and is one of the best known sites nearby. The Pontiac Silverdome, a stadium, is also a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 530,460households
- 41.3median age
- 51%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 20%work from home
What people in Oakland County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Oakland County had 720,266 jobs in 2025, 0.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 13°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 56°. About 62 inches of snow and 35 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the White Lake 4E weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Oakland County
- StellantisTesting laboratories and services12,943
- GDI ServicesWindow cleaning services10,674
- Centria HealthcareHome health agencies7,854
- Corewell Health Wm. Beaumont UnivGeneral hospital6,876FTE
- General MotorsAutomobile proving and testing grounds5,500
- Corewell Health- TroyGeneral hospital3,765FTE
- Ascension Providence HospitalGeneral hospital3,482FTE
- AmazonGeneral warehousing and storage3,420
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1,294 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 232,969 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- TornadoesVery high
- Ice stormsVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- Strong windVery high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Oakland County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Oakland County and the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI metro.
Clarkston home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Clarkston$428,845
- Michigan$263,760
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Clarkston listings, and the typical home goes pending in 12 days — the market is cooling.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Clarkston34.90%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Clarkston12
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Clarkston156
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Clarkston61
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Clarkston$430,992
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Clarkston99.57%
Zip codes with a Clarkston address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Clarkston — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Clarkston
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 48348 | Clarkston | 24,574 | $1,649 | $510,853 |
| 48346 | Clarkston | 23,167 | $1,866 | $363,118 |