Ravines of Ann Arbor

Why this matters more than it sounds

Names are marketing. The legal identity of a Michigan condominium is its master deed, recorded with the county, which names the project precisely and assigns it a number.

When two communities share a name, every automated summary that works from names rather than recorded documents will blend them — and the blended description will be wrong about both. Amenities from one attach to the other. A school assignment from one appears against the other. A tax rate from a township gets quoted for a property inside the city, or the reverse.

That is not a small error. The two communities here differ in almost every variable that sets price: municipality and therefore tax rate, school district, whether the units are attached or detached, community size, and the entire character of the location.

So the first question for anyone buying, selling or valuing here is which recorded project a property is in. A title company answers it, and the recorded master deed answers it definitively.

For a comparable analysis the rule is that a sale in one of these needs adjustment before it stands as evidence for the other, however similar the name on the sign. Confirm the recorded project before using any sale as a comparable.

The downtown community: about eight units

A group of roughly eight units on West Huron just west of South Seventh sits within a short walk of downtown Ann Arbor, and it is a very different proposition from a township community.

Eight units is the smallest scale at which a condominium association operates, and everything said about small associations applies with maximum force. Fixed costs — insurance, management, accounting, legal advice, the reserve study — do not scale down, so each divides by eight. Where the association is responsible for a roof, the whole bill lands on eight households. The reserve study and balance effectively price the purchase.

The location questions are the downtown ones. Parking is the first — what comes with the unit, whether it is deeded, assigned or on the street, and what a permit costs. Sound is the second: a close-in location is close to activity, and an evening visit tells you more than a Tuesday morning. And a Huron Street position is a main route through the city, so traffic and headlights are part of the package alongside the convenience.

The compensating case is straightforward: proximity to downtown is a durable value that does not depend on anyone continuing to maintain anything.

The Scio Township community: about 101 site condominiums

A community of roughly 101 site condominiums in Scio Township is a different product in every respect.

Scio Township surrounds the City of Ann Arbor on the west and is a separate government with its own board, tax rate, services, zoning and assessor. A great many Scio mailing addresses read Ann Arbor, because a mailing address is a delivery route rather than a jurisdiction, and the tax rate differs for otherwise identical properties. A township rate is frequently the lower of the two, which is a permanent monthly difference that belongs in the arithmetic.

School assignment follows a third line again and does not track the municipal boundary.

A site condominium is not a subdivision

Michigan uses the condominium form for detached houses far more than most states, and the result is the site condominium: a house that looks in every way like a house on a subdivision lot, but is legally a condominium unit.

The difference is not cosmetic. In a platted subdivision the owner holds a lot described by metes and bounds, and any homeowners association is a separate voluntary or covenant-based body. In a site condominium the owner holds a unit whose boundaries are defined by the master deed and shown on the exhibit drawings, and the ground around the house is frequently limited common element assigned to that unit rather than owned outright.

That governs a great deal: what may be built, planted or fenced, who maintains what, how the association is funded and what happens at resale.

The practical consequence for pricing is real: a subdivision sale needs adjustment before it can stand as a comparable for a site condominium, or the reverse, however similar the two houses look. The recorded instrument for the parcel settles which is which, and it is worth confirming rather than assuming.

The word ravine, and what it implies about the ground

Where the name reflects the terrain rather than being borrowed for tone, it says something useful. A ravine is a steep-sided valley cut by water, and this county has genuine ones — the ground west and north of Ann Arbor is glacial, with real relief, kettles and moraines rather than the flat till plain east of the city.

Slope brings advantages. It drains, which is why sloping ground is generally drier than flat ground. It makes a walk-out lower level possible, which is genuinely usable living space rather than storage. And it produces privacy and outlook that flat ground cannot.

It also brings specifics worth checking. Water that drains off a slope has to arrive somewhere, and the bottom of a slope collects it — so where a building sits relative to the slope matters more than the average condition of the site. Steep ground constrains where structures, driveways and, on a septic system, a drain field can go. Retaining walls, where present, are structures with a service life and a replacement cost that people consistently underestimate. And a long sloping drive is a different winter proposition from a flat one.

Where a watercourse runs in the ravine, flood plain status is parcel-specific.

The honest summary is that ravine ground is usually better than flat ground and asks more specific questions.

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

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

One question comes before all the others.

For a seller, stating the recorded project name and number, the municipality and the school district removes an ambiguity that is otherwise working against you — because a buyer comparing against the other community is comparing against the wrong thing, in whichever direction that runs.

Not to be confused with

• Ravines · Ann Arbor