Beverly Hills is a small, almost entirely residential village tucked between Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, and Southfield in Southeast Oakland County, and it holds almost no commercial inventory of its own. An exchange buyer who says they want to land in Beverly Hills is usually really describing a preference for this stretch of Telegraph Road and the Woodward corridor nearby, and the actual replacement property tends to sit just across a border most residents wouldn't notice while driving through.
A Bedroom Village With Very Little Zoned Commercial Land
Village government here is deliberately small, and zoning reflects a community that has resisted the kind of commercial buildout its wealthier, more urbanized neighbors accepted decades ago. What non-residential parcels exist sit mostly along Telegraph Road on the village's western edge, in small office and service-retail form rather than anything resembling a shopping center or office park.
That scarcity is by design rather than accident. Beverly Hills incorporated specifically to control its own land use apart from surrounding Southfield Township, and successive village councils have kept commercial rezoning requests rare, which is part of why the residential character here has held steady while adjacent areas built out office parks and retail centers.
Where the Actual Deal Flow Sits
- small professional office along Telegraph Road at the village's western boundary
- medical and dental office serving the surrounding Southfield Township and Birmingham population
- service retail in strip-format buildings on Telegraph and 13 Mile
- adjacent Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills office and mixed-use product, the more realistic deal size for most buyers
Why Neighboring Cities Do Most of the Work Here
Birmingham's downtown office and mixed-use market and Bloomfield Hills's medical and professional office base sit within a few minutes of Beverly Hills and carry the depth of inventory the village itself can't offer. Southfield, directly south, has a much larger and more institutional office market along the Northwestern Highway corridor. Buyers drawn to this part of Oakland County for its demographics and school district reputation typically end up identifying replacement property in one of those three cities rather than inside Beverly Hills's own small footprint.
Pricing Shaped by the Neighborhood, Not the Zoning Map
Because Beverly Hills sits inside one of the more affluent school districts in the region, the limited commercial parcels along its edges price closer to Birmingham's downtown than to a generic Telegraph Road strip elsewhere in the county. A buyer comparing per-square-foot figures to a similar-looking building further north on Telegraph should expect a premium tied to the address and district rather than to the building's own condition or income.
Diligence That Matters for This Corridor
Telegraph Road frontage parcels should be checked against the road commission's access-management rules, since curb cuts and turn-lane requirements along this stretch have tightened over the years and can affect how a site redevelops. Older service-retail buildings from the corridor's earlier commercial era sometimes carry deferred parking-lot and utility work that isn't obvious from a drive-by inspection. Any parcel near the village's boundary with Southfield or Bloomfield Township should have its zoning and jurisdiction confirmed directly, since the small size of Beverly Hills means a single tax parcel can sit close enough to a border to create confusion about which municipality actually governs it. A title search should also confirm which school district a parcel falls under, since district lines in this part of Oakland County don't always track municipal boundaries and the district itself is a meaningful part of the pricing story.
Common 1031 Exchange Questions
Is there much commercial property actually located in Beverly Hills
Very little. The village is almost entirely residential, and what commercial parcels exist sit mostly along Telegraph Road at its western edge in small office and service-retail form, not the larger office and mixed-use product most 1031 buyers are looking for.
Where does most Beverly Hills-area exchange activity actually land
In practice, most buyers end up identifying replacement property in adjacent Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, or Southfield, which carry far more inventory across office, medical, and mixed-use categories while sitting within a few minutes of Beverly Hills itself.
Why does property near Beverly Hills cost more than similar buildings elsewhere on Telegraph Road
Proximity to this school district and the surrounding neighborhood carries its own pricing premium, separate from the building's condition or income, so comparisons should be made against Birmingham-area product rather than a generic Telegraph Road corridor building further from the district.
Can I use replacement property in Birmingham or Southfield if I'm targeting the Beverly Hills area
Yes. The like-kind standard for real property held for investment or business use is broad, and there's no requirement that a replacement property sit inside a specific municipality, so neighboring cities are a normal and often necessary part of the search.
What should I check on Telegraph Road frontage property before closing
Confirm the road commission's current access-management rules for that stretch, since curb-cut and turn-lane requirements affect redevelopment potential, and verify municipal jurisdiction directly given how close some parcels sit to the village boundary.
