Picture two listings this summer, both in Commerce Township, both around 2,400 square feet, both priced within a few thousand dollars of each other. One sits on Commerce Lake. The other sits a few miles away, close enough to Union Lake Road that the listing photos show a sliver of water in the background. A buyer touring both in the same afternoon would reasonably assume they're comparable. They are not, and the gap between them has almost nothing to do with the houses themselves.
The Commerce Lake home comes with something the other one can't offer at any price: a lake that only its shoreline owners can reach. No public launch, no holiday traffic jam of trailers, no stranger's pontoon anchored off the dock on a Saturday. The other home sits near a lake that anyone in Oakland County can put a boat into from a paved ramp with parking for 21 trailers. That single difference, public access versus private, is worth 15% to 30% on comparable square footage across Commerce Township's lake market this year. It is the real price mechanism here, and it has almost nothing to do with the number most buyers check first.
The Lake Everyone Pictures Isn't Fully Here
Ask someone to name a Commerce Township lake and most will say Union Lake. It's the biggest, at 465 acres, and one of the deepest bodies of water in Oakland County, reaching 110 feet at its lowest point. It has a rebuilt public boat launch at Wise Road and Union Lake Road, finished in 2022, and it draws boaters from well outside the township on any warm weekend.
What most buyers don't realize until they're standing in a title company's conference room is that Union Lake, as a place, sits mostly outside Commerce Township. Wikipedia's summary of the township describes Union Lake as an unincorporated community in the northeastern corner, adjoining West Bloomfield, Waterford, and White Lake townships. Commerce Township touches its edge. It doesn't own the lake's identity the way an address search might suggest.
That matters for more than trivia. An address marketed as "near Union Lake" can sit in Commerce Township, in West Bloomfield Township, or straddle a line between the two, and the township determines which government answers the phone for permits, which fire department responds, and which school district a child is routed into. Commerce Township itself is covered by three overlapping districts: Walled Lake Consolidated Schools, Huron Valley Schools, and pockets of the West Bloomfield School District. Boundaries can split by street. A buyer who chose a home because it was "in Commerce Township, on Union Lake" should confirm both halves of that sentence with the assessor's office before writing an offer, not after closing.
Five Lakes, Different Access Arrangements
Commerce Township's five-lake inventory spans a range of public-access arrangements, and those differences can matter to price more than acreage or square footage alone.
More private access:
- Commerce Lake is actually two connected basins, North and South, totaling somewhere between 236 and 293 acres depending on the source, with no DNR launch. Access belongs to shoreline owners only. Entry-level lakefront runs roughly $450,000 to $600,000, with mid-range homes in the $600,000 to $900,000 band, and custom estates above $1,000,000.
- Lake Sherwood spans about 258 to 260 acres with several connecting canals, governed by its own homeowners association. Its size would normally invite public traffic, but the private designation keeps it that way for residents only.
- Lower Straits Lake covers about 236 acres and is mostly private, though it does have one public ramp for Michigan boaters, making it a middle case worth confirming address by address.
More public access:
- Union Lake, at 465 acres, has the paved DNR ramp described above and sees consistent weekend and holiday traffic as a result.
- Middle Straits Lake, about 172 acres, is semi-private in practice. There's a small ramp and parking lot, but it's a West Bloomfield Township launch, and most of the lake itself sits in West Bloomfield rather than Commerce.
The pattern holds across all five: the lakes without a public ramp trade at a premium over the ones with one, independent of size.
What Exclusivity Actually Costs, and What It Doesn't
As of spring 2026, waterfront listings across Commerce Township averaged $543,000 to $568,700, while non-waterfront homes typically transacted between $425,000 and $500,000. That gap looks like a simple waterfront premium until you break it down by lake type. Private-lake homes carry most of that premium. A public-access lake home with the same dock, the same square footage, and the same finishes tends to land closer to the non-waterfront range than to the top of the waterfront range, because the thing buyers are actually paying for on a private lake isn't the water. It's the guarantee that a stranger's boat won't be tying up next to theirs on the Fourth of July.
There's a second number that trips buyers up when they check portals. As of February 2026, Zillow's benchmark for a typical Commerce Township home sat at $386,637, up 3.5% over the previous year. By June and July 2026, the median list price for active inventory was running closer to $565,000. That's not a market that jumped 46% in a few months. It's a market where the current mix of homes for sale skews heavily toward larger and lakefront properties, which pulls the median of what's listed well above the typical value of what's actually out there. A buyer comparing "median list price" to "average home value" without knowing the difference will think the market moved when really the inventory did.
The Bill That Shows Up the Year After You Close
Lake cottages in Commerce Township have a long history of quietly becoming permanent, decades-owned homes, and that history creates a specific tax surprise for buyers. Michigan taxes property on taxable value, which is capped and grows slowly while an owner holds the home under Proposal A. When the home sells, that cap resets. The following year, taxable value can be well above what a long-tenure seller had been paying. For a primary residence with the homestead exemption in Commerce Township, millage currently runs about 24.5 to 34 mills, according to MichiganPorch. A lake home that's been in the same family since the 1960s or 70s, common around Commerce Lake and Lake Sherwood, is exactly the kind of property where this reset lands hardest, because the gap between the old capped value and the new one is largest.
What This Means When You're Comparing Two "Lake Homes"
Before comparing price per square foot on two lake listings, ask three questions that the listing photos won't answer. Does the lake have a public launch, and if so, where's the parking lot relative to the property. Which township and school district does the parcel actually sit in, confirmed by address rather than by which lake name appears in the listing description. And what will taxable value reset to after the sale, since the seller's current tax bill tells you almost nothing about what you'll owe in year two.
None of this shows up on a portal's summary page. It shows up in county records, in the township assessor's office, and in a conversation with someone who tracks these lakes street by street rather than lake by lake.
A Few Direct Questions
Is Union Lake actually in Commerce Township? Only its western edge is. The lake itself is classified as an unincorporated community adjoining West Bloomfield, Waterford, and White Lake townships, so an address near Union Lake could sit in any of several jurisdictions depending on the exact parcel.
Why is the median list price so much higher than the average home value right now? Because the two numbers measure different things. Average home value tracks typical homes across the whole township, while median list price reflects only what's currently for sale, and that mix has leaned toward larger and lakefront inventory through mid-2026.
Do all lakefront homes here come with HOA dues? No. Some, like Lake Sherwood, are governed by an association with dues and rules. Others, including much of Commerce Lake, have no lakewide association, though individual subdivisions along the shore sometimes do. Always confirm at the parcel level rather than assuming based on the lake name.
If you're weighing a Commerce Township lake home against a similar listing on Union Lake, Lower Straits, or anywhere else in Oakland County's lake country, the McDonald Team can walk the parcel-level details with you before you write an offer, not after. Start with a free home valuation to see where your current home or your next one actually fits into this market, or take a closer look at what's available in Commerce Township and the neighboring Waterford and White Lake communities that share these same lakes.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
