Matthaei Farm

The houses

This is a large-house neighborhood, and the upper end of it is genuinely large. A range running to about 5,000 square feet, on wooded acreage, with walk-out lower levels and multi-car garages, is a specification that puts these houses among the more substantial stock northeast of Ann Arbor.

The styles are two-story traditional and contemporary, with open plans — a vocabulary that dates the development to the period when open living space and walk-out lower levels became the expected specification rather than an upgrade. Because the houses were built to sit in woodland rather than on cleared lots, siting varies house to house in a way it does not in a graded subdivision, and the relationship between a particular house and its trees is part of what is being bought.

The range is also wide enough to matter to pricing. Fifteen hundred to five thousand square feet is more than threefold, and the small end and the large end reach different buyers entirely. Match comparable sales on size band and form first, then adjust for the site, its position and condition. A development-wide average describes no actual house here.

At the top of the range the ordinary large-house arithmetic applies: the buyer pool is smaller and geographically wider, the right buyer will travel and pay, and time on the market means less than it would for a three-bedroom colonial. Carrying costs scale with the house — more roof, more cladding, more glazing, more heating and cooling — which makes a documented record of what has been replaced worth more here than on a smaller house.

Half an acre to three and a quarter

A site range from about half an acre to three and a quarter acres is a sixfold spread, and it is the second reason a community average is useless here. A house on a half-acre site and a house on three acres are different purchases at the same square footage, and comparable sales have to be matched on site size and position rather than pulled from a development-wide figure.

On acreage the practical questions are worth asking rather than assuming: whether the property is on municipal water and sanitary sewer or on a private well and septic system, what may be built on the ground beyond the house, and whether the recorded documents or township zoning restrict it. Where there is a septic system, its condition and capacity are a genuine transaction issue; where there is a well, the water is worth testing and the depth and casing details worth knowing.

Where a drive is long, add what it takes to keep clear in a Michigan February. On wooded acreage the tree work is a real and recurring cost too, and it is the kind of thing an owner of some years can describe better than any document.

The woods, and the Botanical Gardens across Dixboro

The development was laid out to keep its wooded setting, and the ground around it is unusually durable green space. Immediately west, across Dixboro Road, the University of Michigan's Matthaei Botanical Gardens hold several hundred acres of gardens, conservatory and natural area, with trails open to the public.

University-held land is a different kind of neighbor from a commercial green space. It is not a use that changes hands on a market cycle, and it does not depend on a private owner continuing to fund it. That is worth more to a buyer than a view alone, and it is a large part of why this pocket northeast of the city has kept its character.

Inside the development, what stays open is a question with a documented answer. Land held in common is protected because the owners collectively own and fund it; woodland that forms part of an individual site is not protected in the same way. From a window the two look identical, and the recorded plan is what distinguishes them.

Superior Township, with an Ann Arbor address

Superior Charter Township lies in the northeast corner of Washtenaw County and is a separate government from the City of Ann Arbor, with its own board, tax rate, services, zoning and assessor. The mailing address here reads Ann Arbor because a mailing address is a delivery route rather than a jurisdiction.

The difference is money. Township and city millage rates are not the same for otherwise identical houses, and a comparable analysis that mixes them imports an error nothing in the paperwork flags. Match comparable sales on municipality, and confirm the rate with the township assessor for the specific parcel rather than inferring it from the address.

In Michigan the taxable value resets on transfer, so what a current owner pays is often not what a new owner will pay. The assessor will explain the figure for a specific parcel at no cost, and at this end of the market the difference is not small.

A technicality in the recorded form

These are individual homes, and they live like it. For completeness: the development is recorded as a site condominium rather than a platted subdivision, which is a common way of recording detached housing in Michigan and a technicality rather than a difference anyone would notice from the street or from inside the house. Each owner holds their own house and site.

The one practical consequence is that there is a homeowners' association with recorded documents — a master deed and its site plan, bylaws, and rules — governing the common land and exterior standards, much as a subdivision's covenants would. Ask for the current documents, the budget and the fee, and where the roads are held in common, what the association's plan is for resurfacing. Ordinary diligence, not a complication.

What the record does not settle

Public sources describe the development, the house and site ranges and the setting, but they do not establish when individual houses were built or who built them. In a development of 72 houses completed over a period rather than in a single season, the year built is a per-house answer.

The assessor's records carry it parcel by parcel, along with the property class and the assessed and taxable values, and the Washtenaw County Register of Deeds holds the recorded documents and their exhibits. Both are public and free, and between them they settle the year, the site boundary and the covenants.

Get the year built for the specific house before the showing. It is what decides which systems are original and what the inspection should concentrate on, and it is not derivable from the development's name.

Schools

Matthaei Farm is served by Ann Arbor Public Schools, which is worth stating plainly because a Superior Township address does not by itself imply the Ann Arbor district — parts of the township are served by other districts. Reporting for this neighborhood places it at King Elementary, Clague Middle School and Huron High School.

Attendance boundaries are redrawn from time to time and do not follow municipal or postal lines, so confirm the current assignment for a specific address directly with the district and get it in writing. District is one of the larger drivers of price difference between otherwise comparable houses, so comparable sales should be matched on it as well as on municipality.

Buying or selling here

The house and its site are the purchase, and the two ranges are wide enough that both have to be pinned down before anything else. Get the actual square footage and the actual site size, then the year built from the assessor, and let that set the inspection agenda rather than guessing from the development.

On a house of this size the documented record of major work does more for price than almost anything else: the roof above all, then heating and cooling, glazing, and the cladding and its edges. Add the utilities question — municipal service or well and septic — and, on the larger sites, the drive and the tree work.

For a seller, the specifics are the case. The site size and its position among the trees, the actual square footage rather than the range, the year built, and what has been replaced and when. Say plainly that this is Superior Township rather than the city, because a buyer will establish it anyway and it reads better coming from the listing. This is a neighborhood people seek out by name; a listing that answers the obvious questions reaches them directly.