Nielsen Square

One-point-one baths, and why the notation matters

The range here is recorded as 1.1 to 2.1 bathrooms, which in Michigan's convention means one full and one half at the bottom and two full and one half at the top.

The convention is that the number before the decimal counts full bathrooms — with a bath or shower — and the number after counts half bathrooms, a lavatory and basin only. The common national convention would write those same units as one and a half and two and a half.

The two notations coincide when the second digit is one, as it happens to be here, and diverge when it is not: a Michigan two-point-two means two full and two half, which a national-convention reader would undercount by a whole fixture group.

Both conventions appear in this county's listing data, sometimes within a single description, so the notation alone does not tell you which is being used. The reliable approach is to count fixtures at a showing rather than trusting the number.

It matters here more than usual because of the size range. In a community running from 890 to 1,950 square feet, the difference between one full bathroom and two is proportionally enormous at the compact end — there is less of everything else to compensate — and bathroom count will move a price further than a couple of hundred square feet does.

So match comparables on bathroom count as well as area, and be explicit about what is being claimed. For a seller, stating it both ways removes an ambiguity that only ever works against you, and southeast Michigan draws a great many buyers from outside the state.

A 119 percent range in one community

From 890 to 1,950 square feet is a spread of about 119 percent — the largest units are more than twice the smallest — and they compete for different buyers at different price points.

A community average is therefore meaningless. It describes no actual unit, and any figure derived from it inherits the error and applies it to every unit in the place.

The compact end serves buyers for whom smaller and lower-maintenance is the point: first purchases, people reducing what they look after, and — in a university city a short distance from downtown — buyers who intend to lease. That last group makes the association's leasing rules a value question as well as a living one, because how many units may be leased at once determines what a unit can be used for and therefore who can buy it.

The upper end is a different product entirely, serving households wanting real space close to the center without a house to maintain.

So comparables have to be built within the range rather than across it: match on form and size band first, then on bathroom count, then adjust for what the unit faces and whether it is an end unit. A sale at one end is not evidence for a unit at the other.

A range this wide in a two-year build usually means several distinct plans rather than one repeated, which is useful — same-plan comparables recur, and identifying which plan a unit is turns an approximate analysis into a tight one. A listing does not always say, and asking is worth it.

Less than a block from the river, which is a specific question

Being that close to the Huron is much of what this location offers, and the practical questions are parcel-specific rather than community-wide — which is the single most important thing to understand.

Flood plain status follows the water and the terrain, not the street pattern or the community boundary, so two units in one community can sit quite differently.

Overland flow and standing water after heavy rain are distinct from mapped flood risk and are frequently the more common experience. They are checked by looking: grade falling away from the building on all sides, downspouts discharging well clear of the foundation, and no staining at the base of any finished lower level. A visit after a substantial rain is worth more than any document.

In a condominium there is a further layer a house does not have. Where the association owns the ground between the buildings and the water, its condition and maintenance are the association's — bank stability, any shoreline structure, drainage and landscaping. Those belong in the reserve study as named lines, and river-adjacent ground is one of the places associations most often under-reserve, because the work is intermittent and easy to defer.

Ask what the association owns toward the river, what it has spent there, and whether the community has ever experienced high water. That last question is for the residents and the minutes, and both will answer honestly.

The Huron is also a managed river, with dams and impoundments along its length — Barton Pond above the city is an impoundment and part of Ann Arbor's drinking water supply — so levels are influenced by operations upstream as well as by rainfall.

Argo Park, Maiden Lane and the trail network

Argo Park is a city holding on the Huron north of downtown, and publicly held parkland is the most durable tier of protected open space: not a business that can close and be sold, and not dependent on an association continuing to fund anything.

It 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, and it is worth stating explicitly rather than describing as a view.

For a comparable analysis that difference is real and almost never priced. An automated valuation reads a city park and an unbuilt private field identically.

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

Maiden Lane runs between the river and the medical campus area, which puts the University of Michigan medical center and the north campus within a very short run — an unusually stable set of employers to be minutes from, and institutional land, which is the most durable kind of neighbor.

Downtown is a short distance south, which is the third durable element here: proximity to the center depends on nobody continuing to fund anything. Three durable things in one location — the river parks, the institutions and the center — is uncommon.

A 2001 to 2002 build at around twenty-three years

A two-year build window is as tight as a build window gets, which means the units are genuinely one product — one code cycle, one generation of materials, one construction period. That makes an inspection finding on one unit informative about the others and makes comparable sales unusually reliable.

These are modern-code buildings with modern insulation, modern electrical service and modern egress.

What twenty-three years brings is the leading edge of the first replacement cycle, arriving across the community at once because it was built together. Original water heaters are at or beyond normal expectancy. Original air conditioning is approaching it. Furnaces are generally still within their expected life but not by much. Original roofs are in the second half of a typical asphalt shingle service life rather than at the end of it — which makes this the period when roof condition genuinely varies from building to building depending on exposure, ventilation and the quality of the original work.

Attic ventilation is worth a specific look for exactly that reason. A poorly ventilated roof space shortens shingle life measurably, and at this age the difference is starting to show.

Original glazing units begin to show seal failure as fogging between the panes around this age, and in a condominium the windows are usually common or limited common element, so replacement is a building decision rather than an owner's.

The item specific to this period is exterior cladding and its edges. Composite and hardboard products perform according to how their ends, edges and penetrations were sealed and how the ground drains away — and on a river-adjacent site the ground drainage half of that question matters more than usual. The bottom courses, and anywhere a deck meets a wall, are where the original detailing shows.

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. Three distinct versions of the split exist around here — Ann Arbor addresses with Pittsfield taxes and Saline schools; Pittsfield taxes with Ann Arbor schools; and a Ypsilanti address with Pittsfield taxes and Ann Arbor schools — which together show that no direction of inference works.

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.

Schools

Nielsen Square is served by Ann Arbor Public Schools. District boundaries are redrawn from time to time.

Buying or selling here

The flood plain determination and the size band are the two things that decide this purchase.

Naming the size band and the plan is the second thing, because a community with a 119 percent range will otherwise drag a unit at either end toward a meaningless middle.