Eagle Ridge

Two and three stories are different products

A community holding both two-story and three-story townhomes contains two genuinely different things, and the difference is larger than the one extra level suggests.

A two-story townhouse is the conventional form: living space below, bedrooms above, one flight between them. A three-story unit adds a level and therefore a second flight — which delivers real vertical separation, a top floor with better light and a longer view, and more floor area on the same footprint.

The costs are equally real and worth naming rather than discovering. Two full flights between the top and the bottom, every day, with groceries and laundry. Getting large furniture to a third floor is genuinely difficult and sometimes impossible, which is a constraint people meet on the day rather than in advance. And for anyone thinking about a long stay or a change in circumstances, two flights is a different commitment from one.

Heating and cooling behaves differently too. Heat rises, so a three-story unit commonly runs warm at the top and cool at the bottom, and a single-zone system cannot fix that. Ask how many zones serve the unit, and ask about the top floor in August specifically.

For pricing, the consequence is that a three-story unit should be compared with other three-story units. At identical square footage they are not interchangeable, and the buyer pool for the taller form is narrower.

Position in the row, which square footage erases

In a townhouse community, position does more work than almost any other variable, and it is exactly what a measured-area comparison cannot see.

An end unit has one party wall rather than two, more exterior wall, more windows and more light — and correspondingly more exterior surface to maintain and more heat loss. An interior unit gains thermal performance and loses aspect. Those are genuinely different products at the same floor area, and comparables should be matched on it.

Aspect matters alongside. What the windows face — a street, a courtyard, a parking area, or a neighboring wall — is felt daily and is invisible on a plan. So is proximity to a drive, a refuse route or a visitor parking area.

Sound is the question buyers most often skip. Transmission through a party wall varies enormously with how it was built — whether it runs all the way to the roof deck or stops at a ceiling — and two buildings of the same age by the same builder can perform quite differently. No document answers it. Stand in the unit at an hour when neighbors are home, which means an evening or a weekend rather than a midday showing of an empty building.

A 2000 to 2003 building at twenty years

A three-year build window means the units are effectively at the same point in their lives, which makes the picture clear.

These were built to a modern energy code with modern insulation, modern electrical service and modern egress.

What is on the list is the first replacement cycle arriving. Original furnaces, air conditioning and water heaters are approaching or at the end of typical service lives. Original roofs are approaching a first replacement, which in a condominium is the association's expense and therefore a reserve question rather than an inspection one. Original double-glazed windows begin to show seal failure as fogging between the panes.

The item specific to this period is exterior cladding and how water is managed at its edges. Composite and hardboard products of the era perform well where ends, edges and penetrations were sealed properly and poorly where they were not, and twenty years is long enough for the difference to have shown. The bottom courses and anywhere a deck or balcony meets a wall are where to look.

On a three-story building there is proportionally more exterior wall and more junctions per unit of floor area than on a two-story one, which is worth directing an inspector at.

A young association reaching its first cycle

A community of this age has been collecting assessments for two decades against major expenses that have not yet arrived, and whether it set that money aside is the whole question.

A low assessment in a twenty-year-old community is not the reassurance it appears to be. It can equally mean reserves were kept thin while everything was new enough not to need anything, with the reckoning arriving as a special assessment when the first major cycle comes due — which is now.

So the reserve study is the document, and the question is whether the funded percentage is adequate against the schedule of upcoming replacements rather than whether the monthly figure is comfortable.

Ask when developer control transitioned to the owners, and read the minutes for any discussion of roofs, drives or exterior work. In a community with three-story buildings, roof access and scaffolding costs are higher than for low-rise stock, which the reserve figure should reflect rather than using a generic rate.

A very small association changes the arithmetic

In a condominium the roofs, facades, drives and shared systems belong to the association, and their age lands on its budget. In a very small building that principle stops being general and becomes arithmetic.

A roof replacement across a 200-unit community divides into a per-unit figure most owners can absorb. The same work in a building of a handful of units divides by a handful. There is almost no dilution — each owner carries a large fraction of every major expense, and a single significant repair can arrive as a special assessment of real size.

That cuts both ways and the good side is genuine. A small association is easier to run, easier to get a decision out of, and far less likely to be captured by an unresponsive board or an expensive management contract. Owners generally know one another and know the building. Reserves, where they exist, are simpler to understand.

But it makes the reserve study more consequential rather than less, and it makes the specific questions sharper. What are the major common elements, when is each due, and what is actually set aside? Is there professional management, or is it run by the owners? And has there been a special assessment — in a building this size, one is a much more likely event than in a large community.

The documents, in order

The reserve study comes first, ahead of the inspection of the unit itself, because whatever the association is responsible for, its age lands on the association's budget rather than the owner's.

The five-year assessment history comes second and is more informative than the current figure. A single-level unit assessment across five years against ageing common elements is a question rather than a reassurance — it can mean disciplined management or deferral, and the reserve study tells you which.

The master deed's division of responsibility comes third: which elements are general common, which are limited common and assigned to a particular unit, and which belong to the owner outright. In a downtown building that division commonly covers windows, balconies, the facade and any parking space, and it varies between associations.

Then the recent minutes, where a pending special assessment or a long-running dispute surfaces before it reaches a disclosure.

South Maple, between Liberty and Pauline

South Maple Road runs north and south on Ann Arbor's west side, and a position between West Liberty and Pauline puts this community within a short run of downtown and of the University of Michigan's central and medical campuses.

It is also close to Michigan Stadium, which deserves an honest paragraph rather than either enthusiasm or omission. On home football Saturdays in fall the streets in a wide radius see very large crowds and heavy traffic, and residential streets become parking. For some households that is part of the appeal; for others it is several Saturdays a year of constrained access. Distance and route matter more than raw proximity, and the city operates restrictions in some areas on game days — worth asking for a specific address, and worth visiting on a home Saturday in October.

Ann Arbor has fifteen historic districts, including the Old West Side. Whether a specific building falls within one is a parcel question the city answers, and inside a district exterior work generally requires review before it proceeds, at the rear and to outbuildings as well as at the street — which in a condominium falls on the association.

Schools

This community is served by Ann Arbor Public Schools. District boundaries are redrawn from time to time.

Assignment is set by address rather than by neighborhood or building name, and district boundaries in this county cross municipal and postal lines routinely. District is one of the larger drivers of price difference between otherwise comparable properties, so comparables should be matched on it as well as on municipality.

Buying or selling here

The form and the position are the two variables, and both are things a listing tends to leave vague.

For a seller, stating whether a unit is two or three stories, whether it is an end or interior position, what the windows face and how many heating and cooling zones serve it answers the four questions a knowledgeable buyer actually has.