Maben Woods

Buying a lot is not buying a house

Eight of eleven lots being vacant means the likeliest transaction here is a land purchase, and land is bought under a different set of rules from housing. Anyone approaching this the way they would approach a resale house will be surprised in expensive ways.

Most residential mortgage products do not apply to vacant land. What is available is a land loan or a construction loan, both of which generally require a larger deposit, carry a higher rate, and run on shorter terms than a mortgage on an existing house.

The second difference is that a vacant lot's value depends entirely on what can actually be built on it, and that is a question with several separate answers — zoning, the recorded restrictions, the setbacks, the wetland and drainage position, and whether utilities reach the parcel. A lot that cannot economically be built on is worth very little regardless of its acreage or its outlook.

None of this argues against buying here. It argues for doing the diligence in the right order, and for understanding that the diligence on land is more consequential than on a finished house, because on a finished house most of these questions were answered by whoever built it.

The questions that decide what an acre here is worth

Take these in order, because a bad answer to an early one makes the later ones moot.

On a parcel needing both, the septic system's viability depends on a percolation test and on the soil, and a failed perc test can make a lot unbuildable for a conventional house. Where sewer exists in the road but the connection has not been made, find out what the connection costs and whether any capacity charge applies.

Then wetland and drainage. Canton is flat and drains slowly, and every creek in the township leads to the Rouge. Regulated wetland on a parcel constrains where — or whether — a house can go, and permitting to build on or fill it is difficult, expensive and frequently refused. A county drain or drainage easement across the lot constrains what can be built over it. Both are documented answers rather than matters of judgment.

Then the recorded restrictions, from the Wayne County Register of Deeds. On a subdivision of large lots these commonly set minimum floor areas, permitted materials, outbuilding rules and sometimes architectural approval by a committee. They can be considerably more restrictive than the township's zoning, and they are what actually governs.

Then the survey, the soil, and where the utilities enter. And only then the design.

What eight vacant lots after this long tells you

This is worth thinking about plainly rather than optimistically. A platted subdivision where three of eleven lots have been built on has not sold out, and the reason is information.

Sometimes the explanation is benign: an owner holding lots deliberately, a plat laid out at a scale the market absorbed slowly, or simply a small development in a location where few large-lot buyers look in any given year. Large-lot subdivisions sell slowly almost everywhere, because the buyer pool for an acre and a custom build is genuinely narrow.

Sometimes it is not benign: soil or drainage that makes building costly, a utility connection that is expensive, restrictions that limit what can be built, or an access or frontage constraint. Those are exactly the things the previous section says to check, and the vacancy is a reason to check them thoroughly rather than a reason to walk away.

The township is the place to ask. Its planning and building departments know what applications have been made on this plat, what was approved and what was not, and whether anything has been refused. That conversation is free and it is the fastest route to understanding why eight lots are still empty.

Three built houses is not a comparable set

With only three houses standing, there is effectively no in-subdivision sales data, and there may not be for years at a time.

That means any valuation here has to be built rather than looked up. For a lot, that means comparable land sales in the surrounding area, adjusted for size, utilities and buildability. For one of the built houses, it means comparable large-lot custom houses across a wider area, adjusted for form, size, finish and lot.

An automated valuation is close to useless at this scale and in this circumstance. It will reach outward for data because it must, and it will not adjust for utilities, buildability, lot size or custom finish — the four things that account for most of the difference. Treat any automated figure here as noise.

The corollary is that a properly constructed analysis is worth more here than almost anywhere around here, and that it needs someone who has actually looked at the parcel.

Western Canton, and the county line

Maben Road sits near Beck and Ford Roads in the western part of the township, and what lies immediately west is worth understanding. Past the township line the ground is Washtenaw County — Superior Township — with a different county government, a different register of deeds, different taxing jurisdictions and different school districts.

That is the address trap at its clearest, and on a land purchase it matters more than usual, because the recorded plat and the restrictions are filed in the register of deeds for whichever county the parcel is actually in. A mailing address, a postal code and a subdivision name can each give a different answer, and none of them is authoritative.

The western side of Canton developed later than the eastern side nearer I-275, and large-lot plats like this one are characteristic of it. Ford Road, carried as M-153, runs east into the township's commercial corridor and west toward Ypsilanti.

Everything here drains to the Rouge

Canton sits entirely within the Rouge River watershed: every creek and stream in the township leads eventually to the same river, and the Lower Rouge itself runs through the township's southern portion.

The scale is larger than most people picture. The Rouge and its tributaries run roughly 570 miles through Wayne, Washtenaw and Oakland Counties and drain about 466 square miles of southeast Michigan, taking in nearly fifty communities. The lower branch rises in Superior Township in Washtenaw County and flows east into Wayne County through Canton, then on through Wayne, Westland, Inkster, Dearborn Heights and Dearborn.

For a buyer the consequences are practical rather than scenic. Ask whether any part of the parcel sits within a mapped flood plain, because that determines whether flood insurance is required and at what cost, and the answer belongs to the current maps rather than to anyone's recollection. Ask whether a county drain or drainage easement crosses the ground, because an easement constrains what can be built over it.

Canton's terrain is flat, which is a drainage disadvantage rather than an advantage: water leaves slowly, and ground that sheds correctly depends on grade that has been maintained.

Three high schools on one campus

Plymouth-Canton Community Schools runs an arrangement that is unusual enough to be worth explaining, because it is the thing about the district that most surprises people arriving from elsewhere.

Canton, Plymouth and Salem High Schools are not three schools in three parts of the district. They sit together on a single 305-acre campus in western Wayne County known as the Plymouth-Canton Educational Park, or locally just as the Park, and it educates roughly six thousand students on a school day. Canton occupies the northern section, Salem the center alongside the administrative buildings, and Plymouth the south, with paved walkways and a forested trail system linking them — so students move between buildings rather than down hallways. Which of the three a student attends is not decided by address: the district assigns high school students randomly across all three, so a house cannot be chosen for one of them the way it can for an elementary school.

The schools share a joint academic program while keeping separate identities and, for most sports, separate teams. Some activities are combined across all three: choir, orchestra, the Plymouth-Canton Marching Band, the FIRST Robotics team and some cheerleading.

It grew rather than being designed all at once. Salem came first, and the district's land holding allowed a second school, Canton, to be built beside it. By the late 1990s enrolment across the two was approaching 5,000, and a third building followed.

None of this settles which district a particular address belongs to — Canton has three.

Three school districts, not one

Canton Township is served by three separate school districts: Plymouth-Canton Community Schools, which covers the substantial majority of the township, along with Van Buren Public Schools and Wayne-Westland Community Schools.

That makes assignment an address-level question rather than a township-level one. Match comparable sales on district as well as on subdivision and size.

Buying or selling here

This is a land transaction wearing a subdivision's name, and treating it as one is most of getting it right.

For a seller of a vacant lot, the diligence a buyer will have to do anyway is worth doing first and presenting: utilities confirmed, a perc test if septic is involved, the wetland position, the recorded restrictions, and a current survey. A lot sold with those answers in hand is a different product from one sold without, and the difference is not small.