Mallett's Wood

The Malletts Creek watershed

Malletts Creek is a tributary of the Huron River and the main outlet for stormwater runoff from the City of Ann Arbor. Its watershed is almost entirely urban and suburban, and much of the creek itself runs in underground piping beneath the built-up parts of the city rather than in an open channel.

The number that explains its behavior is impervious cover. Close to thirty-seven percent of the land surface draining to Malletts Creek is impervious — roofs, roads, driveways and parking lots — which is a high proportion, and it means rain that would once have soaked into ground now arrives at the creek quickly and all at once. A watershed like that responds sharply to heavy rain rather than gradually.

This is public, documented ground rather than speculation. The Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner — the office formerly called the drain commissioner — is the authority for stormwater management, flood control and drainage across the county, and Malletts Creek has its own drainage district. Substantial public money has gone into the creek: a restoration project along roughly a mile and a half, most visible along Washtenaw Avenue, created a constructed wet meadow to hold and slow stormwater, and further conveyance and storage work has followed.

For anyone buying in this part of the city, the practical consequence is that drainage is a specific question rather than a general one. The Water Resources Commissioner's office holds the drainage district records; and the city's stormwater staff can say what work has been done nearby and what is planned.

None of that is a reason to avoid the area — it is some of the most established residential ground in the city, and the public investment in the creek is a reason for confidence rather than concern. It is a reason to ask the question at the parcel level instead of assuming.

Backing onto a creek, and what to establish

A creek outlook is much of what this community offers, and it is also the thing that most rewards a specific inquiry.

Flood plain status is the first question and it is parcel-specific rather than neighborhood-specific. The mapped flood plain follows the water rather than the property lines, so two units in one community can sit differently.

The second question is what the ground does in heavy rain even where the flood plain does not reach. Overland flow and standing water are distinct from mapped flood risk and are frequently the more common experience. Where the ground behind a unit falls toward the creek, that is generally good; where it collects, less so. Visiting after a substantial rain is worth more than any document.

The third is the bank itself. Where a watercourse runs at the edge of a property, erosion of the bank over time is a real matter, and responsibility for it depends on where the boundary sits and what the association owns. The master deed and the drainage district records between them answer it.

The fourth is the daylight basement, which is discussed below and which sits at the intersection of the first three.

None of this argues against the outlook. A creek and woods behind a house is a genuine and durable pleasure, and this is established residential ground with substantial public investment in the watershed behind it. It argues for four specific inquiries rather than an assumption in either direction.

Full daylight basements, which is the honest term

Where a lower level is a full daylight basement, the term is worth taking literally, because most listings blur this vocabulary.

A daylight lower level has windows above grade, letting in real light, but no door to the outside. A walk-out has a door at grade on the downhill side, which makes the lower level a genuine story with its own entrance. A standard basement has neither. Those are three different products at three different values, and a description that says daylight and means daylight is telling the truth.

A daylight basement that may be finished for additional living space is a real feature — it can add meaningfully to usable area at a fraction of the cost of building above ground.

It is also, being partly below grade beside a creek, the place where water shows. The things to look for are a grade falling away from the building on all sides, gutters and downspouts discharging well clear of the foundation, and no staining at the base of any finished wall. Ask directly whether there has ever been water, whether there is a sump pump, and whether the pump has a battery backup — a pump without one is useless in the storm that causes the power cut.

In a condominium there is a further question a house does not raise: whether the basement walls and floor are unit or common element. The master deed says, and it decides who pays if water gets in. In a sixteen-unit association that answer matters more than it would in a large one.

Sixteen units changes the arithmetic

An association's fixed costs do not scale down with the number of units. Insurance, management, accounting, legal advice and the reserve study cost broadly what they cost whether there are sixteen units or two hundred, and divided by sixteen each is a much larger line on every owner's statement.

The large replacements work the same way. Where the association is responsible for roofs, siding or driveways, the whole bill lands on sixteen households with no cushion of numbers to spread it.

That makes the reserve study the most important document here and its absence the most important finding. Ask what the association is responsible for replacing, when each of those components was last done, what the reserve balance is, and whether the study is current. In a sixteen-unit association those four answers effectively price the purchase.

One owner holding two of sixteen units is over twelve percent of the project, and two leased units is a substantial proportion — thresholds a large project would need dozens of units to reach. It means the answer can change between one sale and the next, and it should be established early.

The compensating advantage is genuine. Sixteen owners can decide something in an evening, the accounts are simple enough to understand in full, and there is no professional distance between the owners and the decisions.

Private fenced yards, in a condominium

A private fenced yard attached to a condominium unit is a real amenity and a slightly unusual one, and it comes with a question worth asking.

In almost every case the yard is a limited common element rather than owned ground — that is, common property assigned to the sole use of one unit. That distinction governs what may be done with it. Planting, structures, sheds, fences and hard surfaces are typically subject to the bylaws and to board approval even though nobody else may enter the space.

So the questions are: what does the master deed say the yard is, what do the bylaws permit an owner to do in it, and who maintains it — the owner, the association, or the association's landscaper with the owner unable to intervene. All three answers exist in the documents and none of them is guessable.

The fence itself has an ownership and a maintenance answer too, and where fences are original to a build between 1996 and 2001 they are approaching or past the age at which timber fencing needs replacing.

This is worth the attention because a private outdoor space is much of the reason to choose an attached home over an apartment, and the difference between one you can plant and build on and one you can only look at is considerable.

A 1996 to 2001 build at around twenty-five to thirty years

What arrives instead is the first full replacement cycle. Original roofs are at or past the end of a typical asphalt shingle service life. Original furnaces, air conditioning and water heaters are at or beyond normal expectancy. Original double-glazed windows show seal failure as fogging between the panes.

Because the whole community was built within five years, those cycles arrive together — which in a sixteen-unit association is precisely the scenario a reserve fund exists for, and precisely the scenario that produces a special assessment where one was not built.

The item specific to the period is exterior cladding and its edges. Composite and hardboard products of this era perform according to how their ends, edges and penetrations were sealed, and twenty-five years is long enough for careless detailing to have declared itself. The bottom courses and anywhere a deck or screened porch meets a wall are where to look.

Screened porches deserve their own look. They are usually a lighter structure than the house, their roofs and screens have shorter lives than the building, and the junction where they meet the wall is a classic point of water entry.

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.

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 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 creek is the feature and the question at the same time, and settling it is the most valuable work anyone can do here.

A dry, documented basement history is the second.