Built like it’s 1901?: As is often the case, there are a number of homes on this month’s map that, according to the database that populates Zillow and other sites, were built in 1901. But it’s worthwhile to take that information with a grain of very old salt—often, 1901 is a placeholder date for nineteenth-century structures of uncertain age. Take, for example, 818 S. Seventh St., which sold for $1.3 million. Its prior owners acknowledged the 1901 date as imprecise in their sales description: “A beautifully constructed three-story addition has been designed and curated to compliment the original nineteenth-century farmhouse.” It’s a classic case of caveat emptor; if the true date of the house is important to you, do a little digging.
These are days … on the market: Our eagle-eyed real estate consultant, Sue Maguire, noticed quite a few properties on the market for longer than usual. Her hunch was correct; her research found the total number of days on market (DOM) in the AAPS area from list to under contract in September 2025 was thirty-six, up from twenty-four in September 2024. Ann Arbor Twp. sellers are waiting the longest, an average of forty-four days versus twenty-five a year ago. Scio Twp. is moving quickest at twenty-seven DOM, but that’s still up from seventeen. The result? Sellers accepting less. Examples include the 962-square-foot 3-bedroom, 1-bath saltbox at 120 Mason Ave. Listed at $389,900, it sat for forty-three DOM, then sold for $345,000. Meanwhile, the 3-bedroom, 1.1-bath, 1,700-square-foot Cape Cod at 1517 E. Stadium Blvd. listed for $449,000, sat for thirty-three DOM, then sold for $422,500. “It’s just a tricky market right now,” Maguire says. “Buyers are waiting longer. But if it’s a super-nice house, it’ll still sell in a day or two.”
This Old House of the Month: Bringing together this month’s themes is 1055 Cedar Bend Dr., a sprawling, sumptuous 4-bedroom, 4.1-bath midcentury modern home with 215 feet of Huron River frontage that sold for $1.19 million after 185 DOM (and far below the original list price of $1.995 million). What first drew our interest, though, is its vaunted architect, George Brigham, and its date—1936—which makes it one of the earliest examples of the dramatic, sleek-angled style that would become a post-WWII craze. Brigham, whose illustrious career was recapped in an exhibit at the UMMA in 2014, designed this house—with its gazebo cantilevering over the river!—for U-M chemistry professor W.L. Badger, a pioneer in desalination techniques.