The hidden costs of buying a home in Michigan typically add 3% to 6% of the purchase price to your first 12 months of ownership — roughly $12,000 to $24,000 on a $400,000 home, on top of down payment and standard closing costs. The single biggest is the Michigan property tax pop-up under Proposal A, which can raise year-two taxes by $1,500 to $10,000+ depending on how long the seller owned the home. Other major hidden costs include prorated taxes at closing, first-year escrow shortage letters, water and sewer liens in Detroit, Oakland County drain assessments, HOA capital contributions and special assessments, clay sewer line failures in pre-1970 Metro Detroit homes, and the statistically likely first major repair within six months of closing.

Why…

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Eastern Market Flower Day is one of Metro Detroit's most beloved spring traditions, and the 2026 edition arrives Sunday, May 17, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more than 60 years, the historic market on Russell Street has transformed into a sprawling flower festival featuring over 150 vendors from across the Midwest. Whether the goal is refreshing garden beds, hunting for hanging baskets, or just wandering through one of Detroit's most colorful days of the year, Flower Day is the unofficial kickoff to planting season in southeast Michigan.

This guide covers everything to know before heading down to the market, from parking strategy and what to bring to the new Flower Tuesday markets that are extending the celebration through the entire month of May.

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Curiosity is one of the most underrated tools any buyer can carry into the process. The right questions to ask when buying a house cut through confusion, surface red flags before they become regrets, and turn a stressful transaction into a confident one. Across Metro Detroit (where housing stock ranges from century-old Detroit colonials to brand-new Oakland County builds along Hall Road) asking the right questions matters even more. Markets vary block by block here. So do property taxes, school assessments, and basement realities.

The list below covers the questions worth asking at every stage of buying a house in Metro Detroit. From the first budget conversation through the final walkthrough, these are the questions that protect buyers, sharpen…

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**Updated May 06, 2026

Metro Detroit dining updates this season tell a clear story: the regional restaurant scene is having one of its busiest stretches in years. Spring is the moment when patios fill up across Royal Oak and Ferndale, brunch lines stretch around the block in Birmingham, and a new wave of Metro Detroit restaurant openings reshape how locals eat from the McNichols corridor in Detroit out to the Mile Road grid in Oakland County. The Perna Team works neighborhoods from Detroit to Brighton every day, which means tracking the dining landscape is part of the job, not a hobby.

What stands out about this round of new restaurants in Metro Detroit is the sheer range. Plant-based menus sit next to slow-cooked Yemeni rice bowls. Tiny coffee…

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Metro Detroit home buying myths are everywhere, and most of them cost real buyers real money. The internet, the family group chat, and that one neighbor who flipped a house in 2014 all have opinions about how to buy a home. A lot of that advice was true once and has not aged well. Buyers waste months (sometimes years) waiting for conditions that are not coming or trying to qualify for loans they could already get.

The Metro Detroit market has its own personality. Inventory in Royal Oak moves differently than it does in Macomb County. A pre-approval that wins a bidding war just off Old Woodward in Birmingham looks different than one that wins in downtown Plymouth or Brighton. Knowing which old advice still applies (and which advice belongs in a time…

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**Updated May 21, 2026

Memorial Day Weekend Metro Detroit always feels like the unofficial start of summer, but 2026 is on another level. Movement Festival is celebrating its twentieth anniversary at Hart Plaza, the Detroit Zoo is opening a seven-acre interactive trail experience that's been in development for almost two decades, Kid Cudi is bringing M.I.A. and Big Boi to Pine Knob, and somewhere between Royal Oak and Howell there's a parade, a carnival, or a beach opening with your name on it.

This is the guide to spending May 23 through May 25 right. Everything is organized by county so you can plan around where you actually live (or where you're driving to). Some events run the full weekend, some are one-day affairs, and a few of the Memorial Day…

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The most common first-time home buyer mistakes in Metro Detroit are skipping mortgage pre-approval, ignoring Michigan down payment assistance, underestimating closing costs, waiving home inspections, and stretching the budget too thin. Buyers across Oakland, Wayne, Macomb, Washtenaw, and Livingston Counties can avoid every one of them with the right preparation and the right local guide.

Buying a first home in Metro Detroit is exciting, stressful, expensive, and full of moving parts that nobody really teaches you. Most first-time home buyer mistakes do not happen because someone is careless. They happen because nobody told the buyer what to expect, what questions to ask, or where the real risks live. The home-buying process across Oakland, Wayne,…

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Buying a house feels like the finish line. Owning a home in Metro Detroit is where the real story starts.

Most first-time buyers walk into closing thinking the hard part is behind them. A few months later, they discover homeownership comes with a long list of surprises, some delightful and some that catch even savvy buyers off guard.

The Perna Team has spent more than 24 years guiding over 8,000 families through this exact transition across Oakland, Wayne, Macomb, Washtenaw, and Livingston counties. The patterns are consistent. The lessons are repeatable. The surprises tend to fall into the same handful of buckets every single time.

Here is what seasoned Metro Detroit homeowners wish they had known before they got the keys.

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**Updated May 2026

Mother's Day Metro Detroit celebrations rank among the busiest dining and event days of the year across Southeast Michigan, and the options extend far beyond the brunch table. Across five counties and dozens of communities, from Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills along the Woodward corridor to the Downriver riverfront in Wyandotte, the holiday weekend fills up with lavish buffets, prix-fixe dinners, outdoor nature walks, art fairs, and luxury spa treatments designed to make Mom the priority she deserves to be.

This guide covers the best places to celebrate Mother's Day in Metro Detroit, organized into three sections: Brunch and Dining, Events and Activities, and Spa and Pampering. Whether the plan is a waterfront brunch overlooking…

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Learning how to negotiate the best deal as a home buyer starts long before the offer document is ever opened. The buyer who loses the house is almost never outbid. They are out-prepared.

After 24 years, more than 8,000 closed transactions, and over 3,000 five-star Google reviews, The Perna Team has seen the same pattern repeat across every corner of Metro Detroit: from the I-75 corridor through Oakland County, across Wayne County, up into Macomb County, and out to Washtenaw and Livingston. The buyers who win deals and save tens of thousands of dollars treat negotiation as a system, not a moment. The buyers who lose treat it as a reaction.

This is the full playbook, including the story of a buyer who ignored direct advice over a $1,000 gap and lost…

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