Majestic Lakes

How Michigan states bathroom counts

Michigan listings use a shorthand that misleads people from other markets, and it is worth setting out because it changes what a number means.

The number before the decimal counts full bathrooms — with a bath or shower. The number after counts half bathrooms, a lavatory and basin only. So two-point-one means two full bathrooms and one half. Two-point-two means two full and two half, which is a whole fixture group more than a quick reading suggests.

The common national convention writes the first of those as two and a half. The two notations coincide when the second digit is one and diverge when it is not, which is exactly the situation in which a misreading costs money.

Listings in this county sometimes mix the two conventions within a single description, quoting a range as running from two and a half to four. Where that happens, the reliable reading is to count fixtures at a showing rather than to trust the notation, and to be explicit about what is being claimed when comparing two properties.

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.

Near the Ford Lake recreation area, which is worth being precise about

Ford Lake is a substantial recreational resource and it is worth understanding what it actually is, because a neighborhood described as near it will be compared against genuinely lakeside communities — and near a lake and on a lake are different products with a large price gap between them.

Ford Lake is not a natural lake. It is an artificial reservoir on the Huron River created by the Ford Lake Dam — originally the Rawsonville Dam — designed by Henry Ford and constructed between May 1931 and July 1932, first flooded in 1931. It covers 975 acres and reaches about thirty feet at its deepest near the eastern end. The Ford Motor Company built it to power its Ypsilanti plant, gift-deeded the dam and the adjoining lake property to the City and Township of Ypsilanti in July 1969, and the Charter Township of Ypsilanti has owned and operated it since 1989.

The recreation ground around it is six public parks — Ford Lake, Loonfeather Point, North Bay, South Hydro, North Hydro and Lakeside. That public ownership is the most durable tier of protected open space there is: not a business that can close and be sold, and not dependent on any association continuing to fund it. For a neighborhood near the lake, that is a genuine and permanent amenity.

Two documented matters apply to the water itself and belong in any honest account. The lake experiences seasonal late-summer algal blooms linked to excessive dissolved phosphorus, and the Washtenaw County Health Department has issued advisories about high levels of toxic cyanobacteria that can pose a risk through contact or ingestion. And the lake has been identified as a site of significant PFAS contamination, with state guidance carrying a do-not-eat advisory for fish caught there — no consumption of any species.

Both concern how the water is used rather than owning property near it. A fish advisory is about eating fish, not about boating, living nearby or ownership; it is material to a buyer who fishes and much less so to one who wants a view and a boat. Advisories are revised as monitoring continues, so current guidance should be checked with the state health department rather than taken from any listing.

The colonial, and why it prices predictably

The colonial is the reference form in this market: two stories, bedrooms upstairs, living space down, a fairly regular plan and a comparatively simple roof. That regularity is an advantage in several directions at once.

It gives the deepest comparable data of any form, because more of them were built than anything else — which makes pricing more tractable here than in a neighborhood of mixed or unusual forms.

It gives a simpler roof to replace. A plain hipped or gabled roof costs substantially less to cover than a complex one of the same area, which is a real difference at the point in a house's life when the roof comes due.

And it gives predictable maintenance, because the details are conventional and every trade in the region has seen them.

The other side is that a colonial competes against a great many similar houses, so condition, updating and specification do most of the work in setting a price. The kitchen, the bathrooms, the windows, the mechanicals and the roof are where the differences are, and they are exactly the things a square-footage comparison ignores.

Where a neighborhood is entirely one form, that also means single-level living is unavailable within it — and single-level houses are the scarcer product in this market, reaching a buyer pool that will consider nothing else. A buyer who needs that will be looking elsewhere, and a seller should not expect to reach them.

Open floor plans, and what they commit to

Open planning is named here, and it is worth a practical note rather than an aesthetic one.

It cannot be undone easily. Removing walls is straightforward; putting them back is not, because structure, services and finishes all have to be reworked. A buyer who wants separated rooms should treat an open plan as a fixed characteristic rather than a starting point.

It has acoustic consequences: a large open volume carries sound between areas that would otherwise be separate, which matters most in a household where different activities happen at once.

It has thermal consequences: a single heating and cooling zone across an open plan, particularly with any double-height volume, commonly leaves one part of the house uncomfortable. Ask how many zones serve the house, and ask specifically about the upstairs in August.

And it has a valuation consequence worth knowing: open plan is currently what most buyers want, which means it is priced in rather than a bonus. The scarcer thing is a well-proportioned separate room, and where a house has both, that is worth pointing out rather than assuming a buyer will notice.

What to look up before a showing

The Washtenaw County Register of Deeds holds the recorded plat or master deed: the lot or unit 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 and galvanized steel supply piping, and 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: roofs, furnaces, air conditioning, water heaters and window seals reaching the end of their first lives together.

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.

Both take an afternoon, and both are free.

One Ypsilanti address, four possible jurisdictions

A Ypsilanti mailing address in this county can mean the City of Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Charter Township, Superior Township, Augusta Township or Pittsfield Charter Township — each a separate government with its own board, tax rate, services, zoning and assessor.

A mailing address is a delivery route, not a jurisdiction, and it settles nothing. The tax rate differs, sometimes substantially, between them for otherwise identical properties, which is why comparable sales must be matched on municipality or the analysis imports an error nothing in the paperwork flags. 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 fifth line of its own, tracking neither municipal nor postal boundaries. Ypsilanti Community Schools, Lincoln Consolidated, Ann Arbor Public Schools and — across the county line — Van Buren Public Schools all have boundaries in this area. Match comparable sales on district, which is one of the larger drivers of price difference between otherwise comparable properties.

Lincoln Consolidated Schools, which is not Ypsilanti Community Schools

A Ypsilanti address in the southern part of this county very often means the Lincoln Consolidated School District rather than Ypsilanti Community Schools, and those are two separate districts with separate boards, buildings and budgets.

Lincoln's boundary is unusually far-reaching. In Washtenaw County it serves parts of Augusta Township, York Township and Ypsilanti Township; in Wayne County it serves parts of Sumpter Township and Van Buren Township. A district crossing a county line is uncommon, and it is a reminder that school boundaries here follow none of the other lines a buyer might expect.

The district was founded as the Agricultural Rural Training School Number 1 of Ypsilanti and Augusta Townships, and renamed for Abraham Lincoln because the board felt the name fitted the ideal it was founded on — equal educational opportunity for rural students as well as urban ones. That made it the first multi-township school in Michigan, and the first rural consolidated school system in the country affiliated with a teacher training school. That affiliate was the Michigan State Normal School in Ypsilanti, founded in 1849 and now Eastern Michigan University.

Assignment is set by address rather than by municipality. Match comparable sales on district.

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.

Buying or selling here

Precision about the lake and the golf is worth more than enthusiasm about either.

For a seller, describing the position accurately — near the Ford Lake public parks rather than on the water, and near a course of a specified ownership rather than with access to one — is stronger than a claim a buyer will check within a day.