Harwood Farms

A neighborhood finished at the peak

A subdivision built around 2006 was completed at the top of the market, immediately before the sharpest housing downturn in living memory — which is the mirror image of the interrupted builds described elsewhere, and it leaves its own traces.

The first is the sales record. Prices achieved in 2005 to 2007 came out of a market that no longer exists, and prices achieved in 2009 to 2011 came out of a different one that also no longer exists. Neither anchors anything today, and any analysis leaning on a neighborhood's own history has to start later than that.

The second is ownership history. Early buyers at peak prices were, in many neighborhoods of this vintage, underwater for years afterward. Some sold at a loss, some held, and some properties changed hands through foreclosure or short sale during that period. That history is visible in the record and it is worth understanding rather than guessing at, because a chain of distressed transfers can leave a property with deferred maintenance that a cosmetic refresh does not address.

The third is the association. Where a developer had unsold inventory going into the downturn, developer control could run longer than planned, and developer-controlled boards commonly hold assessments low to keep homes saleable — which is exactly the period when reserves should be building. Ask when owner control transferred and what the reserve balance was at that point.

The fourth is construction timing. A subdivision that was building in 2006 and 2007 may have paused and completed later, in which case houses that look like siblings can be years apart.

None of that is a mark against the place. It is a set of four specific questions with documented answers.

An eighty-eight percent size range is not one market

From about 1,248 to 2,350 square feet is a spread of nearly ninety percent, which means this neighborhood holds at least two products competing for different buyers at different price points.

A neighborhood average is therefore meaningless here. It describes no actual house, and any figure derived from it — including an automated valuation leaning on neighborhood-level data — inherits the error.

The compact end serves buyers for whom smaller and lower-maintenance is the point rather than a compromise. The upper end serves households needing space and competes against different alternatives entirely.

Three forms compound it. Colonials, ranches and two-story houses reach different pools, and the ranch is the one to separate first: single-level living is a requirement rather than a preference for a substantial and growing number of buyers, and there are always more of those buyers than there are single-level houses. A compact ranch here will reach a wider pool than its size suggests.

So a comparable analysis has to be built within the range rather than across it: match on form first, then on area within a narrow band, then adjust for lot position and condition. A sale at one end of this range is not evidence for a house at the other, however close the two stand.

A range this wide in a single subdivision also usually indicates a builder offering a broad catalog, or phased building with different products in different phases. The recorded plat shows which, and phases can carry different restrictions.

A 2006 house at around twenty years

What twenty years brings is the leading edge of the first replacement cycle. 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 house to house 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 between a well-ventilated and a poorly ventilated roof is starting to show.

Original double-glazed windows begin to show seal failure as fogging between the panes around this age, and it appears unit by unit rather than all at once.

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. The bottom courses, and anywhere a deck or porch meets a wall, are where the original detailing shows.

The Michigan Avenue corridor west of US-23

Michigan Avenue through this part of the county is US-12, and it follows the line of the Sauk Trail — the old overland route that became the Detroit and Chicago Road, surveyed in the 1820s and built between 1829 and 1833. Orange Risdon, who founded Saline, was the original surveyor for that road, and the route through Saline has been designated a Michigan Historic Heritage Route.

That history explains the geography. Michigan Avenue is a through route because it has been one for two centuries, and a position on it is convenient and busy in the same breath.

US-23 just east puts Ann Arbor about fifteen minutes north and the Ohio corridor south, and I-94 is reachable without difficulty. That reach is much of the practical case for the position.

The trade-off is the ordinary corridor one and it varies sharply within a single subdivision: how much traffic reaches a particular house depends on distance from the road, orientation and what stands between, and none of that appears in the square footage. Standing in the main room or the backyard at a weekday rush hour, with the windows open, settles it far better than any description.

Where open ground adjoins the subdivision, the ownership question decides its durability, and in this part of the county the most common answer is working farmland — protected only by its owner's current use and whatever zoning and wetland rules apply, unless it is enrolled in a preservation program.

A Saline address is not necessarily the City of Saline

The City of Saline is a municipality in its own right, and it is ringed by townships — Saline, York, Lodi, Pittsfield and Bridgewater among them — whose mailing addresses read Saline. A mailing address is a delivery route rather than a jurisdiction, and it settles nothing.

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. There is a clear example a few miles away: a subdivision whose addresses read Ann Arbor, whose taxes go to Pittsfield Township, and whose children attend Saline schools — three different answers, all three correct, none derivable from the others. Match comparable sales on district.

What to look up before a showing

The Washtenaw County Register of Deeds holds the recorded plat or master deed: the lot count, the dimensions, the original restrictions, the proprietor and the date.

The year built sets the entire inspection agenda. The 1960s and early 1970s raise aluminum branch circuit wiring, whose concern is the connections rather than the wire, and galvanized steel supply piping, which corrodes internally and loses flow before it fails. Anything before 1978 carries a lead-based paint disclosure requirement. The late 1970s to the mid-1990s raise polybutylene supply piping — the single most consequential era question in this region, identified by looking rather than by inference. From the late 1990s onward none of those apply, and the ordinary arc of first-generation components arrives instead.

The recorded instrument matters second, because it decides whether a property is a platted lot or a Michigan site condominium — a distinction invisible from the curb and material for pricing.

Four tiers of protected open space, and a Michigan fifth

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.

Buying or selling here

The specific year and the size band are the two things to establish here.

For a seller, the assessor's year built resolves whether a house is early or late in a build that may have paused, and being explicit about which form and which size band the house sits in prevents it from being measured against a neighborhood average that describes nothing. Dated records for the roof and mechanicals matter at twenty years more than most buyers expect.