Apartments for Rent in Dearborn, MI

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• How many apartments for rent are available in Dearborn, MI right now?

  Dearborn is one of the few inner-ring Detroit suburbs where rents run above the city they border, and that inversion shapes everything on this page. The 14 apartments for rent listed around Dearborn cluster heavily in West Dearborn along the Michigan Avenue corridor and out toward Fairlane, with a thinner and considerably cheaper spread through East Dearborn, Springwells and the South End where the stock is prewar houses and two-family flats rather than complexes. Rents have been close to flat, up about 0.79 percent over the past year to a citywide average near $1,703, and 45 percent of Dearborn rentals fall between $1,501 and $2,000. Search ZIP codes 48120, 48124, 48126 and 48128 together, since the city wraps around part of Detroit and a single corridor can cross several of them.

• How much does it cost to rent an apartment in Dearborn?

  The citywide average is about $1,703 for roughly 1,003 square feet. A one-bedroom runs near $1,438 for about 743 square feet, a two-bedroom near $1,675 for around 1,094, and a three-bedroom near $2,311 for about 1,425, which is where Dearborn's larger prewar units start to look like good value per square foot. The spread between neighborhoods is wide. You can find apartments under $1,600 a month around Springwells and the East Dearborn blocks off Warren Avenue, where the townhouse stock averages $1,559, while the Fairlane Town Center area averages roughly $2,227 and buys you a newer building next to the mall and the office parks. If your budget will not stretch, Dearborn Heights sits immediately west at about $1,136 and shares most of the same commutes.

• Is there rent control in Dearborn, and what deposit can a landlord charge?

  There is no rent control in Dearborn and no Michigan city can create any. Public Act 226 of 1988, MCL 123.411, bars every county, city, village and township in the state from enacting, maintaining or enforcing an ordinance that controls the rent charged for private residential property, so renewal pricing is governed only by your lease. Michigan does regulate the deposit closely. MCL 554.602 caps a security deposit at one and a half months' rent, so a $1,675 two-bedroom cannot lawfully ask more than $2,512.50. Your landlord must tell you within 14 days of move-in which financial institution holds the deposit, and must give you a move-in inventory checklist to complete and return within 7 days. After you move out they have 30 days to mail an itemized list of any damages claimed. Give them a forwarding address in writing within 4 days of leaving, because Michigan law can otherwise cost you the right to contest deductions.

• Should I check that a Dearborn apartment for rent is registered with the city?

  You should, and it takes one email. Dearborn requires every non-owner-occupied property to be enrolled in the city's Residential Rental program and to hold a current Certificate of Occupancy before it can lawfully be rented, and the city inspects registered rentals on a three-year rotating cycle against minimum housing standards, with the certificate expiring three years from the first inspection. That is stricter than most Wayne County suburbs and it exists for a reason: a lot of Dearborn's rental stock is older two-family housing where furnace, egress and wiring issues are genuinely worth catching. Ask the landlord for the certificate before you sign, and if the answer is vague you can contact the city's rental program directly. An unregistered unit is not automatically unsafe, but it does mean nobody has looked at it, and it tells you something about how the building is run.

• Are there apartments for rent near the Dearborn Amtrak station or the SMART routes?

  Yes, and this is Dearborn's quiet advantage over comparable Detroit suburbs. The John D. Dingell Transit Center, at 21201 Michigan Avenue in West Downtown Dearborn since it opened in December 2014, is a genuine intermodal station: Amtrak's Wolverine stops three times a day each way between Chicago and Pontiac via Detroit, and SMART routes 140, 160, 200, 210, 250 and 261 all meet there. From that one point you get a one-seat bus ride to downtown Detroit, to Westland, south to Trenton, and to Detroit Metro Airport. Apartments in the West Downtown blocks along Michigan Avenue trade on exactly that, and they are within walking distance of the shops, restaurants and The Henry Ford. Elsewhere in the city you are driving, with Michigan Avenue, Ford Road, the Southfield Freeway and I-94 carrying the load.

• How does Dearborn compare with Detroit or Dearborn Heights on apartment rent?

  Dearborn is the expensive one, which catches people out because the assumption is that a suburb this close to Detroit should undercut it. Apartments here average about $1,703 against $1,345 in Detroit proper, $1,136 in Dearborn Heights immediately to the west, and $1,439 in Livonia. That is a gap of more than $550 a month between Dearborn and Dearborn Heights for two cities that share a border and most of the same commutes, and it is the single biggest lever a Dearborn apartment hunter has. What the premium buys is the school district, the Michigan Avenue and Warren Avenue business districts, the transit center and proximity to Ford. It is still well below Ann Arbor at $2,058. Price Dearborn Heights and Melvindale alongside Dearborn before you sign a twelve-month lease, because the same money buys a noticeably larger unit a mile west.