Best Places to Buy Rental Property in Michigan (2026)

The cheapest place to buy in Michigan is also the best place to collect rent on it. Flint closed at a median of $48,250 and asks $967 a month, which is 24.0 percent gross before any cost. Second is Detroit: 17.7 percent gross, $88,000 to buy, $1,300 a month to rent. For one of these cities the page also shows a confirmed-close median; in Detroit, 104 confirmed lease closes carry a median of $1,300 against a $1,300 asking median. The two samples are not paired, so the gap describes the samples, not the same homes. Measured against the whole state, these are cheap markets: a median of $162,250 here against $285,500 statewide. The table shows the 20 highest-yielding markets among 74 Michigan cities meeting the coverage requirements; the yield range above describes the markets shown. A second table lists five cities with enough closings to price but too few rental listings to rank.

The ranking

Gross yield here is an asking rental yield screen: twelve times the median asking rent over the median closed price, before taxes, insurance, vacancy, management or repairs. Sales use municipal boundaries. Rental listings use the associated city name and may cover a wider postal area. The ratio therefore compares related, but not perfectly matched, market samples, and a home bought at the median price does not necessarily earn the median rent. Confirmed-close medians appear where at least 30 confirmed lease closes were recorded in the window.

City by city

1. Flint, 24.0 percent gross

The numbers: $48,250 median closed price across 566 closings, $967 median asking rent across 819 listings, 24.0 percent gross. The Flint market page carries the monthly figures.

2. Detroit, 17.7 percent gross

Detroit's confirmed-close median, $1,300 on 104 closes, sits close to its $1,300 asking median; the samples are separate, so read it as agreement between two medians rather than a validated yield. The numbers: $88,000 median closed price across 3,196 closings, $1,300 median asking rent across 6,962 listings, 17.7 percent gross. The Detroit market page carries the monthly figures.

3. Saginaw, 17.6 percent gross

At $74,000 to buy and $1,085 a month to rent, Saginaw yields 17.6 percent gross on 271 tracked closings. Full detail is on the Saginaw market page.

4. Pontiac, 12.4 percent gross

The numbers: $135,000 median closed price across 309 closings, $1,400 median asking rent across 510 listings, 12.4 percent gross. Full detail is on the Pontiac market page.

5. Eastpointe, 11.2 percent gross

Homes in Eastpointe closed at a median of $149,275 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $1,395, a gross yield of 11.2 percent. The Eastpointe market page carries the monthly figures.

6. Jackson, 10.8 percent gross

At $144,000 to buy and $1,296 a month to rent, Jackson yields 10.8 percent gross on 249 tracked closings. Full detail is on the Jackson market page.

7. Adrian, 10.8 percent gross

Adrian's rental sample is 65 percent apartments and condos while its sales are mostly houses, so the $1,395 asking median understates what a house rents for there. Homes in Adrian closed at a median of $155,000 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $1,395, a gross yield of 10.8 percent. The Adrian market page carries the monthly figures.

8. Roseville, 10.7 percent gross

Homes in Roseville closed at a median of $162,500 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $1,450, a gross yield of 10.7 percent. Full detail is on the Roseville market page.

9. Lansing, 10.4 percent gross

At $150,000 to buy and $1,300 a month to rent, Lansing yields 10.4 percent gross on 873 tracked closings. The Lansing market page carries the monthly figures.

10. Bay City, 10.1 percent gross

Bay City is cheaper than its yield rank suggests: fourth on price, tenth on yield, because a $127,500 home there rents for only $1,075. The numbers: $127,500 median closed price across 302 closings, $1,075 median asking rent across 181 listings, 10.1 percent gross. The Bay City market page carries the monthly figures.

11. Taylor, 10.0 percent gross

The numbers: $179,950 median closed price across 368 closings, $1,500 median asking rent across 222 listings, 10.0 percent gross. Houses there closed at about $141 per square foot. See the Taylor page for the property mix and the price band.

12. Redford, 10.0 percent gross

Homes in Redford closed at a median of $180,000 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $1,500, a gross yield of 10.0 percent. See the Redford page for the property mix and the price band.

13. Dearborn Heights, 9.5 percent gross

Homes in Dearborn Heights closed at a median of $215,000 over the last six months and the median asking rent in the last twelve months was $1,700, a gross yield of 9.5 percent. Houses there closed at about $147 per square foot. The Dearborn Heights market page carries the monthly figures.

14. South Lyon, 9.4 percent gross

Rent is what puts South Lyon fourteenth here; on price alone it would sit eighteenth of 20. At $240,000 to buy and $1,879 a month to rent, South Lyon yields 9.4 percent gross on 160 tracked closings. Houses there closed at about $156 per square foot. Full detail is on the South Lyon market page.

15. Port Huron, 9.3 percent gross

Port Huron is cheaper than its yield rank suggests: tenth on price, fifteenth on yield, because a $162,000 home there rents for only $1,250. The numbers: $162,000 median closed price across 246 closings, $1,250 median asking rent across 131 listings, 9.3 percent gross. Full detail is on the Port Huron market page.

16. Garden City, 9.2 percent gross

Garden City moves fast, 10 days from listing to contract at the median, which matters more than its 9.2 percent yield if you cannot close quickly. At $220,000 to buy and $1,680 a month to rent, Garden City yields 9.2 percent gross on 213 tracked closings. See the Garden City page for the property mix and the price band.

17. Grandville, 9.1 percent gross

Grandville clears the rental bar narrowly, with 68 listings behind its $2,495 median, so its 9.1 percent yield deserves a wider margin of error than the bigger samples here. The numbers: $330,000 median closed price across 212 closings, $2,495 median asking rent across 68 listings, 9.1 percent gross. The Grandville market page carries the monthly figures.

18. Hudsonville, 9.0 percent gross

Hudsonville moves fast, 7 days from listing to contract at the median, which matters more than its 9.0 percent yield if you cannot close quickly. The numbers: $340,000 median closed price across 134 closings, $2,550 median asking rent across 105 listings, 9.0 percent gross. The Hudsonville market page carries the monthly figures.

19. Southfield, 8.8 percent gross

At $231,000 to buy and $1,697 a month to rent, Southfield yields 8.8 percent gross on 397 tracked closings. The Southfield market page carries the monthly figures.

20. Oak Park, 8.8 percent gross

The numbers: $232,000 median closed price across 212 closings, $1,700 median asking rent across 159 listings, 8.8 percent gross. Houses there closed at about $164 per square foot. Full detail is on the Oak Park market page.

Priced, but too few rentals to rank

Resideline can price these cities but cannot yet rank them on rent: each has 100 or more closings and fewer than 50 rental listings in the window.

How this ranking is built

• •Cities: every Michigan city where Resideline tracked at least 100 closings inside the municipal boundary in its reporting window (six or twelve months) and at least 50 rental listings under the city's name since October 3, 2025: 74 cities qualify and the table shows the 20 highest-yielding.
• •Prices: the median price homes closed at inside the city limits, from Resideline's tracked closings; the state comparison uses the statewide median of $285,500 across 77,944 closings.
• •Rents: the median advertised rent on rental listings Resideline tracked in the last twelve months, all property types, measured on the listings that carry the city's name (a postal footprint, wider than the city line in some places).
• •Confirmed-close medians: Observed rent blends two kinds of record: confirmed lease closes extracted from property records, and the final asking rent on listings that left Resideline tracking without a recorded close. Where a city has at least 30 confirmed closes in the window, their median is printed beside the asking figure; in the last twelve months about a quarter of Resideline's close episodes are confirmed closes. The asking and confirmed-close samples are separate, not paired, so a difference between their medians is not a measured gap on the same listings.
• •What is missing: taxes, insurance, vacancy, management and repairs, which turn a gross yield into a net one, and the unit mix, which differs between what sells and what rents.

Sources and related pages

• •Resideline tracked closings inside city limits (window per city, updated October 4, 2026) and rental listings since October 3, 2025; confirmed lease closes extracted from property records.
• •More Michigan rankings: Cheapest cities to buy a house in Michigan ranks the same kind of list with each city's price per square foot for houses, realized appreciation and days to contract beside the median, and Cap Rate by City ranks the Michigan cities Resideline tracks by gross rental yield. The Michigan housing market hub carries the statewide figures and the largest Michigan markets by closings.
• •Asking rent vs observed rent compares live asking rents with final asking rents under that study's own definition; it says nothing about confirmed lease closes.

Prepared with Resideline's research pipeline and reviewed by Jeffrey Batista, Resideline's founder.