In Orion Township, the Median Price and the Average Price Are Moving in Opposite Directions

General Motors is adding thousands of jobs at its Orion Assembly plant, and by the usual logic, Orion Township's housing numbers should be climbing in a straight line. They aren't. Over the trailing 12 months, the median sale price for homes in Orion Township rose 24 percent, according to Homes.com data. Over that same period, the average sale price fell 5 percent, and homes that did sell sat on the market for 68 days, compared with a 52-day national average. Those three numbers describe the same market and point in three different directions.

That divergence isn't a data error. It's the story.

The Jobs Announcement Behind the Headlines

As GM Authority reported, the GM story itself has already shifted once. Orion Assembly was originally positioned as a hub for all-electric vehicle production. Slower-than-expected EV demand, higher costs tied to tariffs, and softer federal emissions rules pushed GM back toward gas-powered vehicles, and in May 2026, reporting on supplier notifications confirmed the plant will build the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups alongside the Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV starting in early 2027, scaling toward roughly 190,000 units a year.

The Lake Orion Review reported that Township Supervisor Chris Barnett had flagged the shift earlier, telling the Orion Area Chamber of Commerce at its October 2025 State of the Community luncheon that the new product lineup meant "five thousand jobs" for the area, while also highlighting development concentrated along the Brown and Baldwin roads corridors. In its coverage of his April 2026 State of the Township address at Woodside Bible Church, the Lake Orion Review quoted Barnett connecting that hiring to what he called the "housing boom": "that's why we're having a lot of this housing boom, that's why hopefully your businesses will be thriving."

That's the version of the story most people hear. It's accurate as far as it goes. It just doesn't explain what the sales data is actually doing.

What the Sold Data Actually Shows

Three separate measures of Orion Township home values are telling three separate stories right now, and none of them agree.

Zillow's home value index for Orion, a smoothed measure that tracks estimated value across the broader housing stock rather than only recent closings, put the average home value at $407,353 as of May 31, 2026, up a modest 3.3 percent over the year. That's a normal, unremarkable appreciation rate for a healthy suburban market.

The sold data tells a rougher story. Homes.com's trailing 12-month figures show the median sale price at $630,000, up 24 percent, while the average sale price sat at $476,065, down 5 percent over the same period. The site also recorded only 15 homes sold in Orion Township over that window.

Fifteen sales is a small enough sample that a single new-construction closing at one end of the price range, or a single high-value resale at the other, can move the average and median in opposite directions without either number being wrong. When a market's transaction volume is that thin, and new construction is entering at multiple price points at once, the average and the median stop moving together because they're no longer describing the same mix of homes from one period to the next.

Add the fact that homes are taking 68 days to sell against a 52-day national average, even as the reported median climbed, and the picture sharpens. This isn't a market where everything is moving faster and for more money. It's a market where a smaller number of higher-value transactions are closing, while a broader pool of listings, some of it new construction still working through pricing and buyer interest, sits longer before finding a buyer.

Three Developments, Three Price Points

The township's current construction provides context for the thin, uneven sales activity.

Toll Brothers announced Altair Ridge in February 2026 as a low-maintenance townhome community with landscaping and snow removal included, aimed at buyers who want less upkeep without leaving the township. Waldon Reserve, by contrast, is building larger detached homes on a small, private footprint, the kind of product that supports the higher end of that sold-median figure. Lavender Ridge is the outlier in scale, a 161-unit master-planned community mixing housing types across a much larger footprint.

Three builders, three very different bets on what an Orion Township buyer wants right now. That range is exactly what shows up as a widening gap between average and median once these homes start closing alongside existing resale inventory.

Why Homes Are Sitting Longer While Prices Climb

A 68-day average time on market, 16 days longer than the national figure, doesn't fit the image of a plant announcement setting off a buying frenzy. It fits a market where buyers now have more to choose from and more reason to compare before committing.

Part of that comes from timing. GM's production ramp doesn't start until early 2027, not this fall. The jobs Barnett described are real, but they arrive on a schedule, not all at once. A buyer weighing a resale listing against a still-selling new-construction community, in a plant town that reversed its own production plans once already, has reasonable grounds to take an extra few weeks before signing anything.

The township itself isn't hurting for reasons to attract that patience. Orion Township markets itself as maintaining one of the lowest tax rates in southeast Michigan, alongside an A rating from Niche and recognition as a Pure Michigan Trail Town, factors that matter more to someone comparing townships over a matter of months than to someone reacting to a single week's job announcement.

What This Means If You're Comparing Orion Township Right Now

The headline version of this story, more jobs equals a hotter market, isn't false. It's just incomplete in a way that matters if you're the one deciding what to offer on a house here.

If you're looking at existing homes in established parts of the township, particularly the sections closer to Lake Orion and its schools, the sold-median data suggests genuine, meaningful price growth over the past year. That's the segment absorbing whatever demand the GM news is generating right now.

If you're comparing that against new construction, the picture is different. Altair Ridge's mid-$400,000s starting point and Waldon Reserve's $580,000 to $600,000 listings sit on either side of the township's reported sold average, which means new construction here isn't uniformly cheaper or more expensive than resale. It depends entirely on which development and which product type you're comparing against which resale listing.

None of that changes because Orion Assembly is switching from electric trucks to gas ones. It changes because three builders made three different bets on the same township at the same time, and the sales data hasn't caught up to sorting out what that means yet.

A Couple of Questions Worth Asking Before You Act

Does the GM investment guarantee continued price growth in Orion Township? The plant's hiring and production plans are confirmed, with gas-powered Silverado, Sierra, and Escalade production scheduled to begin in early 2027. What isn't yet reflected in a full year of sales data is how that hiring translates into sustained buyer demand once it actually starts, as opposed to the anticipatory activity showing up now.

Is new construction actually more affordable than resale here? Not consistently. Altair Ridge's townhomes start well below the township's reported sold average, while Waldon Reserve's single-family homes have been listing well above it. Which option costs less depends on the specific development and product type, not on new construction as a category.

If you're trying to make sense of what a specific listing in Orion Township is really worth against this backdrop, that's a conversation worth having before you write an offer, not after. Trisha Mell has spent years reading Oakland County's market shifts as they happen, not after the fact, and can walk through what these numbers actually mean for the property you're looking at. Let's Connect.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.