Ferndale, Michigan.
Typical home $246,062 (-1.7% in a year), asking rent $1,654 (+4.6%). Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$613 (+90%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $4,276 -2%
- $250,337$246,062 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $26,101 +12%
- $219,961$246,062 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.
- Ferndale$1,292
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 31 years.
Typical home values in Ferndale, MI fell 1.7% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Ferndale, MI rose 4.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Ferndale runs $162/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $311 in Nov 2024.
That is $1,816 a month against $1,654 rent: a $1,292 mortgage payment, plus $261 property tax and $263 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Ferndale
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$1,816
- Renting$1,654
- Mortgage only$1,292
Property tax · $261/mo 1.27% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Oakland County, MI
Insurance & upkeep · $263/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 Ferndale, Oakland County, Michigan
Ferndale is a city of 19,190 people in Oakland County. Half its households earn more than $94,640 a year and half less, against $97,760 across Oakland County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 67% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 33% are rented. Unemployment in Ferndale was 3.9% in August 2026, and Oakland County had 0.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 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. Ferndale is a small city in Oakland County, close enough to Detroit that the city and its larger neighbor feel connected. Households here earn a little less than across the county, and most homes are lived in by their owners, though the city has more renters than many towns of its kind. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers turn warm in July. Rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in professional and business services, manufacturing, and banks, insurance and property. Ferndale Public Schools is the largest workplace in the city, and Gage Products Company, a paint thinner maker, is among the others. A good share of people work from home, and those who travel to a job have a fairly short commute. A large share of adults hold a four-year degree.
Things to do. The Detroit Zoo is in or beside town, which makes it an easy outing. A short drive away, the Detroit Institute of Arts is a museum with a long-standing reputation, and Comerica Park is the stadium where baseball is played. For a longer day out, Lake Saint Clair is a lake a longer drive away.
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- 10,348households
- 58%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 28%work from home
What residents 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 32° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 65°. About 30 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Detroit City Airport weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ferndale
- Ferndale Public SchoolsSchool district468FTE
- Detroit Axle FerndaleGenerators, motor vehicle electrical, used, merchant wholesalers220
- Gage Products CompanyPaint thinner and reducer preparations manufacturing110
- Brass Aluminum Forging EnterprisesAluminum forgings made from purchased metals, unfinished100
- Hoyt, Brumm & LinkFabricated pipe and pipe fittings made from purchased pipe90
- SelandoGrocery stores83
- G&B ElectricElectrical contractors75
- Progressive Metal ManufacturingJob stampings, automotive, metal, manufacturing64
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 17 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,063 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); 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
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesrelatively high in parts of FerndaleRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ferndale’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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.
Ferndale home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ferndale$246,062
- Michigan$263,760
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Ferndale listings, and the typical home goes pending in 13 days — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Ferndale35.31%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Ferndale13
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Ferndale134
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Ferndale51
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Ferndale$255,515
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Ferndale100.27%
Zip codes with a Ferndale address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ferndale — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.