Crossings of Ann Arbor

Argo Park is the most durable kind of neighbor

Argo Park sits on the Huron River north of downtown and is city parkland — publicly held, which is the most durable tier of protected open space there is.

That deserves stating as a fact rather than described as a view, because it is genuinely different from most of what is recorded nearby. It is not a business that can close and be sold, as a golf course is. It is not association common area that the owners fund and a future board could revisit. It is not farmland or an unbuilt parcel awaiting a planning application, which is what a great deal of adjoining green in this county actually is.

For a comparable analysis the difference is real and almost never priced. A home adjoining permanent public open space has something a home adjoining unbuilt private ground does not, and an automated valuation cannot see the difference at all — both read as open land.

The park is also part of a network rather than an isolated space. The Huron corridor through the city carries the Border to Border Trail, Washtenaw County's paved route intended to cross the county end to end and part of Michigan's Iron Belle Trail, linking the riverside parks to each other and eventually to the Metroparks upstream. Connectivity to publicly held land is one of the more durable features a location can have.

A well-used park is also a used park, and the balance between outlook and activity depends on where a unit sits relative to entrances and activity areas. Argo is among the busier riverside spots in the city in summer. Standing on the site on a Saturday afternoon in season tells you more than any description.

Overland flow after heavy rain is distinct from mapped flood risk and checked by visiting after a substantial rain. The Huron is also a managed river, with dams and impoundments along its length, so levels follow operations upstream as well as rainfall.

Compact units, and the market they serve

A range of 800 to 1,460 square feet with one to two bedrooms is genuinely compact, and it places this community in a specific and durable part of the market rather than a compromised one.

That is worth saying plainly because compact housing gets described as though it were a concession, and for a great many buyers it is the point: less to heat, less to maintain, less to clean, and a smaller monthly cost in every direction. Combined with a park at the door and downtown a short distance south, it is a coherent product rather than a lesser one.

The buyer pool includes people making a first purchase, people deliberately reducing what they look after, and — in a university city — buyers who intend to lease. That last group makes the association's leasing rules a value question as well as a living one: how many units may be leased at once, whether there is a waiting list, and whether the rules have changed recently. In a university city those rules do change, and they change what a unit can be used for.

Within the community, the variables that do the work are form — two-story, townhome or flat — what a unit faces, whether it is an end unit, and condition. A single-level unit only reaches the buyer pool for whom stairs are a requirement to avoid if it is reached without stairs, which is the question people forget to ask.

A range of nearly eighty percent across a compact community still means two price points, so comparables should be built within the range rather than across it.

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

Mature trees beside a river

Mature canopy is one of the things that most distinguishes an established community from a new one, and it cannot be bought at any price in a new development.

Where the trees are association common area, they are also a recurring obligation that people rarely think of as a budget line. Inspection, pruning and eventual removal are ongoing rather than occasional, a large tree near a building or a path is one to have an arborist look at, and removal of a mature tree is a four-figure expense. That belongs in the reserve study as a named line rather than folded into general grounds maintenance.

Canopy over roofs is the everyday version: leaf drop into gutters and valleys, exactly where roofs fail first — several times a year rather than annually — and shade that keeps surfaces damp and shortens the life of a covering.

River-adjacent ground tends to be lower and damper than the built ground beside it, which makes drainage a more specific question here than usual. Where a unit sits relative to the slope, whether grade falls away from the building on all sides, whether downspouts discharge well clear, and whether there is staining at the base of any finished lower level are all worth checking directly. A visit after heavy rain is worth more than any document.

And Michigan regulates wetland at the state level, with the city regulating further, which constrains what may be built or cleared near water — relevant to any association considering work on its own grounds.

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 and tracks neither the municipal nor the postal boundary. There are examples running in both directions: a subdivision with Ann Arbor addresses, Pittsfield Township taxes and Saline schools; and, elsewhere in Pittsfield Township, a community assigned to Ann Arbor Public Schools. Neither is derivable from the address.

Match comparable sales on district as well as on municipality — district is one of the larger drivers of price difference between otherwise comparable properties.

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 park adjacency and the form are the two things worth being precise about.

For a seller, stating that the community adjoins city parkland on the Huron — publicly held, permanent, and part of the Border to Border network — is a durable and checkable claim that very few sellers in this county can make, and it should be prominent rather than implied. Being explicit about the form and whether a single-level unit is reached without stairs is the other half.