Are older condos the new starter homes?: With prices of both single-family houses and new condominiums in Ann Arbor continuing to spiral up, what are folks to do who don’t want to leave the city? One answer: Buy a decades-old unit originally built as an apartment. Sales on this month’s map on Island Dr. ($255,000, built in the 1960s) and Liberty Pointe Dr. ($302,000, built in the 1980s and 1990s) represent opportunities to become owners at prices that used to get you an entry-level house. Walden Hills and Summit View, a pair of 1960s-era complexes on the far west side, are of a similar ilk; one 1,173-square-foot 2-bedroom, 2-bath unit out there went for $200,000 in October, and a 769-square-foot 1-bedroom was on the market in February for $169,900.
A familiar name returns: Former Ann Arbor News scribe Colleen Newvine took to Instagram in January to announce her return to town: she and husband John Tebeau, an artist, bought 2114 Needham Rd. for $495,000. They’ve lived in New York for nearly twenty years, but never intended to stay that long, she writes. “We auditioned many places for our post-NYC home, from up the Hudson River to Chicago to Costa Rica. We considered multiple factors, with an eye toward where we’d like to be as retirement approaches. Ultimately, our roots in Ann Arbor won out.” They snapped up the 3-bed, 3-bath 2,539-square-foot 1959 ranch for nearly $100,000 less than last August’s initial list price. Fun fact: In May 1998, Newvine wrote in the News that the local real estate market was “heating up.” Average home price then: $176,035.
Timing is everything: Often when a high-dollar house is bought and sold quickly at a loss, it’s because someone got a big job elsewhere and had to move. For physician Kate McCracken, who came to Ann Arbor last year from Columbus to take a job at Michigan Medicine, and Colin Baumgartner, creative services director for the Collective Genius marketing firm, their “dream house” hit the market just a few months too late. The couple was searching for a “mid-century house,” says Baumgartner, but missed out on the limited inventory that hit the market in early 2024 and pivoted to a charming 1933 Tudor at 2111 Brockman Blvd., paying $1.375 in June. Soon afterward, 830 Avon Rd., a sensational hilltop design by local mid-century pioneer Robert Metcalf, became available. They bought it in January for $1.625 million–and sold 2111 Brockman the same day for $1.15 million.