Arlington Place

A 1989 build sits inside the polybutylene window

This is the single most consequential era question in this region's housing, and 1989 sits inside it.

It was inexpensive and easy to install, and it developed a reputation for failing at fittings and joints. Some has performed for decades; some has not. The only way to know is to have the piping identified by material during the inspection rather than inferred from the year.

In a condominium there is a wrinkle a house does not have, and it is a large one. Whether supply piping is unit or common element varies with the master deed, and that decides who pays for a replacement and who decides when it happens. In a thirty-six-year-old community, an association that has already re-piped has removed the single largest question about the buildings — and it will appear in the minutes and the reserve history. Ask directly, and ask whether the work was funded from reserves or by special assessment, because the answer says how the association has been run.

At thirty-six years the first full replacement cycle has passed and the second is beginning. Original roofs are well past a typical asphalt shingle service life, so they should have been done at least once — ask when and by whom. Furnaces, air conditioning and water heaters are long beyond expectancy, and original double-glazed windows show seal failure as fogging between the panes.

The item specific to this period is exterior cladding and its edges. Hardboard and early composite products perform according to how their ends, edges and penetrations were sealed and how the ground drains away, and thirty-six years is long enough for careless detailing to have declared itself.

A twenty percent range means position does the pricing

From 1,000 to 1,200 square feet is a spread of about twenty percent, which is narrow for this county and genuinely useful.

It means the units really are comparable to one another, that sales recur against a consistent product, and that a comparable analysis has something solid to work from rather than an average that describes nothing.

So the variables that do the work here are not area. They are form — a detached or single-level ranch unit and an attached unit are different products — then what a unit faces, whether it is an end unit, and condition. Those are precisely the adjustments an automated valuation makes badly or not at all, which is why a same-form comparable plus a considered adjustment beats a model here.

The ranch units deserve separating first. Single-level living with no internal stairs reaches a persistent and geographically wide buyer pool — people for whom it is a requirement rather than a preference — and there are always more of those buyers than there are single-level homes. But that only holds if the unit itself is reached without stairs, which is the question people forget to ask: a single-level unit up a flight of stairs excludes exactly the pool the form is otherwise made for.

A primary suite is worth naming as a feature rather than assuming, because in units of this size and vintage it is not universal, and where it exists it reaches a wider pool than a plan without one.

An end unit has one shared wall instead of two, which is a real and priceable difference that square footage ignores entirely — and in a community where square footage barely varies, differences like that are most of what separates two sales.

"Adjacent nature areas" covers three different protections

That phrase is worth resolving for a specific home rather than accepting, because it covers three arrangements worth very different money.

It may be publicly held land — a city, township or county holding, which is the most durable tier of protected open space. Ann Arbor's natural area system is also actively stewarded, with invasive species removal, prescribed management in some areas, and volunteer workdays, which means the character of the land is maintained deliberately rather than allowed to drift. For a neighboring property that is a better assurance than an unmanaged parcel.

It may be land under a recorded conservation easement, which runs with the land and survives a change of owner and of local board — nearly as durable, and often better than people expect.

Or it may be association common area under a nicer name: real protection while the association holds it, but revisitable, and funded by the owners as a recurring cost. Where that is the answer, wooded common area also carries an obligation people underestimate — trees near homes and paths need inspection, pruning and eventual removal, and that belongs in the reserve study as a named line rather than in general grounds maintenance.

There is a fourth possibility the phrase sometimes hides: unbuilt private ground protected only by whatever zoning and wetland rules apply, which on a developing edge is more common than people assume.

One inquiry to the city or township, plus a title company report, settles which applies. Where the answer is one of the first two, that is a durable claim very few sellers know to make — and for a comparable analysis the difference is real, because an automated valuation reads permanent public open space and an unbuilt field identically.

South of Washtenaw, on Huron Parkway

Huron Parkway is one of Ann Arbor's principal north-south routes and Washtenaw Avenue is the busiest commercial corridor in the county, so this position carries the convenience of both and the traffic of both.

The convenience is substantial: everyday shopping and services close by, both city centers reachable, and I-94, M-14 and US-23 all within a short run.

The trade-off varies sharply within a single community, depending on distance from the road, orientation, glazing and what stands between. None of that appears in the square footage. Standing in the unit at a weekday rush hour with the windows open settles it, and it is worth doing rather than assuming.

Glazing is the specification nobody asks about and it matters more here than any other detail. What the windows actually are determines how much of the corridor reaches the room — and in a condominium the windows are usually common or limited common element, so replacing them is a building decision rather than an owner's. On a 1989 building, original units are at or past the age where seal failure appears, which makes this a live question rather than a theoretical one.

This side of the city drains toward the Malletts Creek system in part. Malletts is the main outlet for stormwater runoff from the city, much of it in underground piping, with close to thirty-seven percent of the land draining to it impervious — which is why it responds sharply to heavy rain. Flood plain status is parcel-specific.

What the association documents decide

Buying a condominium unit means buying into a corporation as well as a home, and the corporation's condition is not visible at a showing. Four documents settle it: the master deed and its exhibits, the bylaws, the current budget and the reserve study.

The master deed defines what the unit actually is — where the boundary runs between unit and common elements, and what limited common elements are assigned to its sole use. That is the most misunderstood part of condominium ownership, and it decides who pays for a great many things.

The bylaws set the rules that govern daily life: what may be altered, what may be parked, whether units may be leased and how many at once, and how the board is elected.

The budget and the reserve study together answer whether the association is solvent. An association with thin reserves and a large component near the end of its life is not cheaper — it is a deferred bill with an unknown date, and it arrives as a special assessment.

Board minutes are where a coming expense, a dispute or a construction defect claim surfaces first, and they are the most informative document nobody reads. I go through the recent ones as a matter of course.

One Michigan detail worth knowing: condominium documents are amended by recorded instrument, so what is recorded governs regardless of what any summary says.

An Ann Arbor address is not necessarily the City of Ann Arbor

The City of Ann Arbor is ringed by townships — Scio, Pittsfield, Ann Arbor, Superior and Lodi among them — whose mailing addresses read Ann Arbor. A mailing address is a delivery route rather than a jurisdiction.

Each township is a separate government with its own board, tax rate, services, zoning and assessor. The rate difference between a city parcel and a township one is real and recurring, which is why comparable sales must be matched on municipality. Rates and taxable values both change, so compare the current millage and the parcel's own taxable value rather than a remembered difference; a tax bill arrives on the local schedule, and a lender collects an estimated share of it monthly.

School assignment follows a third line again. Three distinct versions of the split exist around here — Ann Arbor addresses with Pittsfield taxes and Saline schools; Pittsfield taxes with Ann Arbor schools; and a Ypsilanti address with Pittsfield taxes and Ann Arbor schools — which together show that no direction of inference works.

Four tiers of protected open space

Where open ground adjoins a property, ownership is the first thing that decides whether it stays open — but not the only one.

Land held by a public body is generally the most durable, though a public body can still sell or repurpose land. Land under a recorded conservation easement is next — an easement runs with the land, surviving a change of owner and of local board. Association common area is real protection that the owners themselves pay for. Unbuilt private land carries the least protection of the four, but that is not the same as none: zoning, recorded deed restrictions and state wetland regulation can each constrain what may be built, filled or cleared, and EGLE requires authorization for specified activities affecting regulated wetland.

From a window all four look identical, which is why it is worth checking the record rather than the view: ownership, any recorded easement or restriction, the zoning, whether wetland is mapped, and whether a development application has already been approved.

Buying or selling here

The supply piping and what has already been replaced are the two things that decide this purchase.

For a seller, documentation of the association's re-piping and re-roofing history, with dates and how the work was funded, is worth more than anything inside a unit — it answers the first question a well-advised buyer of a thirty-six-year-old community will ask.