The City Guide
A short email covering what's actually happening in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Saline — not market hype, just the local stuff worth knowing. Sign up below and you'll get the next one.
Pick your weekend
Five ways to spend it, depending on what you're actually in the mood for.
Date night
Dinner on Main Street in Ann Arbor followed by a walk through Kerrytown, or Zingerman's Roadhouse if you want something less downtown and more of an event. Either way, go early — parking downtown on a Friday is its own small project.
With kids
Gallup Park for the paddle boats and the playground, or the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum if the weather doesn't cooperate. Both are the kind of thing you can do on short notice without planning around it.
Shop local
Depot Town in Ypsilanti and Saline's Main Street business district are both built for an afternoon of actual small shops, not a mall substitute. Different character, same idea.
Wild card
Whatever's actually on this month rotates — the local events page is the source of truth on dates, since those change and this page won't always catch up in time.
Sunday option
The Border-to-Border Trail or Nichols Arboretum if you want quiet. No plans required, no tickets, no parking fight.
Washtenaw Pulse
One real thing worth knowing, not a market hype cycle: Michigan taxable value uncaps to the state equalized value the year a property transfers, which means a buyer's first full-year tax bill almost never matches what the seller was paying. It trips up more buyers' budgets than almost anything else in the transaction — the full explanation is here if you want the mechanics.
Weekend Watch
$10,000 Over List Price
A quick look at one listing and what actually got it there.
More of what's been resonating lately lives on the YouTube channel — that's also the place to check for whatever's newest, since this section only rotates when the newsletter goes out.
From The Grey
An occasional column connecting something happening locally to the bigger questions I write about in The Grey. This issue: Washtenaw County is in the middle of becoming a real center of AI data center development — a $7 billion campus broke ground in Saline Township this year, and a proposed University of Michigan / Los Alamos computing facility in Ypsilanti Township has drawn real pushback from township officials. Both are genuinely still developing stories. The full piece, with what it might mean if you're buying or selling near one, is in this issue's Washtenaw Living.
Get the next issue
What's in it, every issue
- A neighborhood or area spotlight
- Recurring local events worth planning around (see the local events page)
- One useful, practical real estate note — not a sales pitch
- A video worth two minutes, and occasionally, a longer take from The Grey
The area, at a glance
Ann Arbor's Farmers Market, Gallup Park, and the Old West Side and Burns Park neighborhoods anchor the city side. Ypsilanti's Depot Town and Water Street corridor carry a different, more historic character. Saline keeps a classic small-downtown feel with its own Main Street business district. Three genuinely different day-to-day experiences within a short drive of each other.