Northside Ridge

Several products in a small community is the hard case

A 180 percent size range with one to four bedrooms means this community holds at least three distinct products — and it holds them across only fifty-two homes.

That combination is harder to price than either problem alone. A wide range in a large community still produces enough sales of each product to work from. A narrow range in a small community produces few sales but of a consistent thing. Here there are few sales spread across several products, which means the in-community comparable set for any particular home may be one sale, or none, across several years.

So the analysis has to widen deliberately into similar product elsewhere and then adjust for what it crossed — municipality, association, age, position. An automated valuation does the widening and none of the adjusting, and in a community like this one it will also average across the range, producing a figure that suits the middle and misprices both ends.

The discipline is to match on form first — a detached ranch and an attached unit are different products — then on size band, then on the specific vintage, and then adjust for position and condition.

For a seller of a home at either extreme, that means the case has to be constructed and argued. A 1,014 square foot unit and a 2,845 square foot home in the same community will both be dragged toward a meaningless middle by any analysis working from the community rather than the home.

The compensating advantage of a small community is human: fifty-two households know which homes have had work done, how the association actually functions, and what is coming. That is information no inspection produces and no listing contains, and in a community this size it is worth asking for directly.

Nine years crosses the era boundary

A build from 1996 to 2005 spans nine years.

A home from the first year or two 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.

In a condominium there is a wrinkle a house does not have: whether supply piping is unit or common element varies with the master deed, and that decides who pays for a replacement. In a community built across the boundary, an association's re-piping history may be partial — some buildings affected, others not. Ask what has been done and to which.

The replacement cycle also arrives unevenly. The earliest homes are approaching thirty years and are into their first cycle — roofs due or done, mechanicals at or past expectancy. The latest are around twenty and have more of it ahead. A buyer can find both a home with everything done and one with everything to do inside one community, and the difference is larger than most listings reflect.

For a fifty-two-home association, an uneven cycle is harder to fund than a simultaneous one, because the spending never pauses long enough to rebuild a reserve. Ask whether the reserve study accounts for the different vintages separately or treats the community as one age.

Fifty-two homes is a small association

An association's fixed costs do not scale down. Insurance, management, accounting, the audit or review, legal advice and the reserve study cost broadly what they cost whether there are fifty-two homes or five hundred. Divided by fifty-two, 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 fifty-two households with no cushion of numbers to spread it.

So the reserve study is the most important document here and its absence the most important finding. Ask what the association is responsible for replacing, when each component was last done, what the reserve balance is, and whether the study is current.

Governance has a corresponding fragility: a board needs officers, and fifty-two households is a modest pool from which to fill them year after year. Ask who is on the board, how long they have served, and whether anyone is prepared to take over.

The compensating advantages are real. Fifty-two owners can understand their own accounts in full, decisions do not disappear into a management company, and there is no professional distance between the owners and the decisions.

Finished basements, and the three-way lower level distinction

Finished basements are named here, and below-grade finished space is one of the most commonly mispriced features in a home.

It is generally not credited by appraisers in the same way as above-grade square footage, and how much credit it receives varies. Two homes with identical total finished area can appraise differently depending on how much sits below grade. That is not a reason to discount it — it is genuinely usable space — but it is a reason to expect the appraisal arithmetic to differ from the listing arithmetic, and for a seller to be precise about which part of a stated area sits below grade rather than face a surprise.

In a community with a 180 percent stated range, that precision matters more than usual: some of the apparent range may be below-grade area that will not be credited, which changes what the range actually means.

The three-way distinction is worth insisting on. A true walk-out has a door at grade on the downhill side and is a genuine story with its own entrance and full-height glazing. A daylight lower level has above-grade windows but no door. A standard basement has neither. Because it depends on where a home sits on the site, some here will have one and others another.

A finished lower level also conceals what an inspector would otherwise see: foundation walls, framing, and any staining that would indicate past water. That makes the seller's written answer about water history more valuable, not less. Check grade falling away, downspouts discharging well clear, no staining at the base of finished walls, and whether the sump pump has a battery backup.

In a condominium there is a further question: whether the lower level walls and floor are unit or common element. The master deed says, and it decides who pays if water gets in.

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. Match comparable sales on district as well as on municipality — district is one of the larger drivers of price difference between otherwise comparable properties.

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

Northside Ridge is served by Ann Arbor Public Schools. District boundaries are redrawn from time to time.

Buying or selling here

The vintage, the size band and the reserve position are the three things that decide an analysis here.

For a seller, the assessor's year built resolves which half of a nine-year build a home sits in, and being explicit about form, size band and how much of the stated area is below grade prevents it being measured against a community average that describes nothing.