Royal Oak, Michigan.
Typical home $328,150 (+1.9% in a year), asking rent $1,962 (+5.0%). Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$853 (+98%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,080 +2%
- $322,070$328,150 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $52,990 +19%
- $275,160$328,150 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.
- Royal Oak$1,722
- Michigan$1,384
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Royal Oak, MI rose 1.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Royal Oak, MI rose 5.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Royal Oak runs $460/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $548 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,422 a month against $1,962 rent: a $1,722 mortgage payment, plus $348 property tax and $351 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Royal Oak
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$2,422
- Renting$1,962
- Mortgage only$1,722
Property tax · $348/mo 1.27% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Oakland County, MI
Insurance & upkeep · $351/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 Royal Oak, Oakland County, Michigan
Royal Oak is a city of 58,211 people in Oakland County. Half its households earn more than $101,109 a year and half less, against $97,760 across Oakland County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 68% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 32% are rented. Unemployment in Royal Oak was 3.1% 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. Royal Oak is a city in Oakland County where incomes run a little above the county's, and most homes are lived in by their owners, though renters make up a real part of the community. Residents are younger than in many American towns, and most adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January highs near freezing, and summers turn warm in July, with rain and melted snow spread through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, manufacturing, and banks, insurance and property. Corewell Health WM. Beaumont Univ, a general hospital, and Royal Oak Schools are among the largest workplaces in town, along with Consumers Energy. Many people work from home, and a typical commute is a moderate one.
Things to do. The Detroit Zoo is in or beside town, which makes it the easiest outing from home. A longer drive away are the Detroit Institute of Arts, a museum, and Comerica Park, a stadium. Lake Saint Clair, a lake, is also a longer drive from town.
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- 29,110households
- 64%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 27%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, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Royal Oak
- Corewell Health Wm. Beaumont UnivGeneral hospital6,876FTE
- Royal Oak SchoolsSchool district695FTE
- Consumers EnergyDistribution of natural gas341
- Flex-N- Gate Royal OakMotor vehicle metal parts stamping319
- MeijerRetail250
- DauchGears, automotive, truck, and bus, manufacturing153
- Trader Joe's 0674 Royal OakGrocery store142
- City of Royal Oak - Police DepartmentPolice departments129
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 31 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 12,098 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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 in parts of Royal OakRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesrelatively high in parts of Royal OakRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Royal Oak’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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.
Royal Oak home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Royal Oak$328,150
- Michigan$263,760
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Royal Oak listings, and the typical home goes pending in 12 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.
- Royal Oak33.47%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Royal Oak12
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Royal Oak361
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Royal Oak130
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Royal Oak$349,262
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Royal Oak100.57%
Zip codes with a Royal Oak address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Royal Oak — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Royal Oak
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 48073 | Royal Oak | 33,106 | $1,711 | $318,952 |
| 48067 | Royal Oak | 24,868 | $2,099 | $338,836 |