Heatherwood

Fifteen years crosses the era boundary

A community built from 1989 to 2004 spans fifteen years.

A unit from the first half of this build may have it; one from 2000 onward almost certainly does not. It is identified by looking during the inspection, never by inference — and in a condominium, whether supply piping is unit or common element varies with the master deed, which decides who pays for a replacement.

That produces an unusual situation worth naming: within one association, some buildings may carry the question and others may not, which means an association's re-piping history may be partial. Ask what has been done and to which buildings.

The replacement cycle also arrives unevenly rather than all at once, which is unusual and worth using. The earliest units are approaching forty years and are well into their second cycle — roofs done once or twice, mechanicals replaced more than once. The latest are around twenty and have most of the first cycle ahead. A buyer can find both a unit with everything done and a unit with everything to do inside one community, and the difference is larger than most listings reflect.

For the association, an uneven cycle is harder to fund than a simultaneous one, because the spending never stops long enough to rebuild a reserve. That is worth asking about directly: whether the reserve study accounts for the different vintages separately, or treats the community as one age.

First floor, second floor, and a detached garage

In a community of stacked ranch flats, the floor a unit sits on is the largest single difference between two otherwise identical units. A first-floor unit has no stairs between the parking and the door, which matters to a specific and growing set of buyers and is priced accordingly. A second-floor unit has nobody overhead and is often the brighter of the two, but the flight of stairs is a permanent condition of the property rather than a preference that can be renovated away.

Sound between stacked units is the other half of that question, and it depends on the floor assembly and on what has been laid over it since. A hard surface installed over an assembly built for carpet is a common source of complaint in communities of this form, and the bylaws usually have something to say about what may be installed. Read that section rather than assuming, particularly if you intend to change the flooring.

Where garages are detached and set away from the buildings, the garage is almost always an assigned limited common element rather than something owned outright. The master deed says which space goes with which unit, whether it can be reassigned, and who maintains the structure and the door. Confirm that from the recorded documents rather than from the listing or from wherever the seller happens to park.

Comparables have to match on all of it: floor, measured area, garage assignment and condition. Two units of the same size in the same community can be genuinely different products, and an automated valuation that averages them misprices both.

The reserve study test for shared amenities

Where a community has a pool, a clubhouse, courts, trails or ponds, those are real amenities with real costs, and they belong in the reserve study as named lines with their own dates and figures.

A pool is among the most expensive things a residential community can own. Resurfacing is periodic and substantial; the pumps, filters, heater and enclosure are separate replacements on their own cycles; and there is liability, insurance and either staffing or monitoring on top.

A clubhouse is a building in its own right, with a roof, mechanicals and bathrooms or a kitchen, all on ordinary building cycles.

Tennis and other courts need resurfacing periodically, and eventually the base beneath needs reconstruction — much the larger expense of the two, and the one most often left out.

Ponds silt, weed and occasionally need dredging; any outlet structure carries its own inspection duties; and a fountain or aerator is machinery with a service life measured in years.

So the test is specific: does the reserve study name each of those as a separate line? Where it does, the association is being run properly. Where it lumps them together or omits the equipment, the shortfall arrives later as a special assessment.

It is also worth asking how much the amenities are used. Ones a community values are worth what they cost; ones that sit idle are a line on every owner's statement for something nobody uses. And the honest way to compare this community's assessment against another's is to ask what each one covers before comparing the numbers.

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.

Buying or selling here

The vintage of a specific unit and the floor it sits on are the two things that decide an analysis here, and neither is the community name.

For a seller, the assessor's year built resolves which half of a long build a unit sits in, and being explicit about the floor, the measured area and the assigned garage prevents the unit being measured against a community average that describes nothing. For a buyer, those same three facts are what make one listing here genuinely comparable to another.