Brookside Commons

A 1990 build sits inside the polybutylene window

This is the single most consequential era question in this region's housing, and 1990 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, the builder or the community.

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-five-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-five 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. The bottom courses and anywhere a deck meets a wall are where to look.

Vaulted and cathedral ceilings have their own agenda

These ceilings change several practical things at once, none of which appears in a listing.

Heating and cooling first. A ceiling that follows the roof pitch rather than sitting flat below it lets heat rise out of reach: the occupied part of the room runs cooler in winter while the peak runs hot in summer. A home with vaulted ceilings on a single heating and cooling zone commonly has one room that is never quite right. Ask how many zones serve the home, and ask specifically about that room in August and in January.

Then insulation and ventilation. A flat ceiling has an attic above it, with room for deep insulation and a clear ventilation path. A vaulted ceiling has neither — the insulation sits in the rafter depth, and the ventilation path is a narrow channel between insulation and roof deck that is easy to block. Where it is blocked or the insulation is thin, the result shows as ice damming at the eaves in winter and heat gain in summer. Both are visible to an inspector who is told to look.

Then access. Light fittings, ceiling fans, smoke alarms and any glazing high in a gable are out of reach of a step ladder, which turns routine maintenance into a job requiring scaffolding or a specialist.

None of that argues against vaulted space, which is much of why buyers choose homes that have it. It argues for asking two specific questions rather than admiring the room.

Walk-out, daylight and standard are three different lower levels

A true walk-out has a door at grade on the downhill side, which makes the lower level a genuine story of the home with its own entrance and full-height glazing. A daylight lower level has above-grade windows but no door: better than a standard basement, and materially less than a walk-out. A standard lower level has neither.

Listings use the terms loosely, and because it depends on where a home sits on its site, some in a community will have a true walk-out and others will not whatever the general description says. It is settled by looking rather than by reading.

Below-grade finished space is generally not credited by appraisers in the same way as above-grade square footage, and how much credit it receives varies. Two homes with identical total finished area can appraise differently depending on how much sits below grade — a reason to expect the appraisal arithmetic to differ from the listing arithmetic, and for a seller to be precise about which part of a stated area is below grade rather than face a surprise.

A finished lower level also conceals what an inspector would otherwise see: foundation walls, framing, and any staining that would indicate past water. That makes the seller's written answer about water history more valuable, not less. Check grade falling away on all sides, downspouts discharging well clear, no staining at the base of finished walls, and whether the sump pump has a battery backup.

Ask whether the finishing was permitted, particularly where a bedroom is in it — egress is the item that matters, and the building department holds the record at no cost.

In a condominium there is a further question: whether the lower level walls and floor are unit or common element. The master deed says, and it decides who pays if water gets in.

Three forms, and "Commons" as a name

Two-story homes, townhomes and attached units in one community means three products competing for three different buyer pools, and matching on form matters before matching on area.

A two-story home is the reference product with the deepest comparable data and the simplest roof to replace. A townhome stacks its own space vertically with party walls on one or both sides. An attached unit is the broadest category and the one most in need of specifics: how many walls are shared, and whether anything sits above or below.

None of the three reaches the single-level buyer pool, which is worth being honest about in a community with no ranches. People for whom no stairs is a requirement rather than a preference will be looking elsewhere, and a seller should not expect to reach them.

There is also a Michigan question worth settling: a detached two-story home here may be a platted lot or a site condominium, which is invisible from the curb and material for pricing, since a subdivision sale needs adjustment before it can stand as a comparable for a site condominium or the reverse. The recorded instrument settles it.

The Commons in the name signals shared open ground, which almost always means association common area — real protection while the association holds it, and a recurring cost the owners fund. Those two facts are inseparable, and a listing generally mentions only the first.

So the questions follow directly: what exactly does the association own, what does it cost to maintain each year, and does the reserve study name the components that eventually need replacing? The items most often left out are the ones easiest to defer — any pond and its outlet structure, trail surfacing, play equipment, and, largest of all, private roads where reconstruction is the biggest expense a small association can face.

Off South Main, near Cranbrook Park

South Main is a principal route running south from the center of the city toward the Ann Arbor-Saline Road corridor and I-94, and Eisenhower Parkway is a principal east-west route. A position near both is the convenience of this location and its trade-off in a single fact.

How much traffic reaches a particular unit depends on distance from the road, orientation, glazing and what stands between, and within one community those differences are large and are not reflected in 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 deserves a specific mention on a 1990 building. Original units are at or past the age where seal failure appears as fogging between the panes, 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, and a live one at this age.

Cranbrook Park is a city holding, and publicly held parkland is the most durable tier of protected open space: not a business that can close and be sold, and not dependent on an association continuing to fund anything. It is worth distinguishing sharply from the community's own common ground, which is real but revisitable and funded by the owners. Both get called green space; only one of them is free.

This part 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 running 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 rather than gradually. Flood plain status is parcel-specific.

A brook in the name is worth the same inquiry: where a watercourse is genuinely present, flood plain status, overland flow after heavy rain, and Michigan's wetland regulation all apply, and the answers are parcel-specific rather than community-wide.

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 the association has already 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-five-year-old community will ask.