Lodi Township, MI

Hidden Creek Estates is actually TWO sets of neighborhoods, a west neighborhood on Meridian Court off Dell Road, the other, an east neighborhood on Taylor Lane, off Noble Road. The two are SPLIT by a creek between the two neighborhoods, both end in a cul-de-sac. Homes to build by local contractors are priced approximately between the upper $200,000's and the lower $300,000's.

(Disclaimer: I am not the listing agent for the lots or homes in this neighborhood, but I can work with you as a buyer's agent if you have any interest in these or other neighborhoods in the area!)

Although Dell and Noble road are gravel roads, both neighborhoods are paved and are great for bicycling and walking about.

CLICK HERE FOR A VIRTUAL TOUR of both neighborhoods!

Some folks enjoy the city, some of us enjoy the country life.... To each his own.

Leading west out of Saline, is a rural road running for almost just 8 miles. Saline Waterworks Road has typical suburban life in the Northview Subdivision and Breconshire Subdivisions. Two churches are also nearby towards the east end. It starts off for about half a mile as a paved road, then turns to "gravel" or "unimproved", pick your term. (Click here for a VisualTour.)

As the road leaves the city of Saline, it then becomes Lodi Township, but with a Saline mailing address. Some folks are squeamish about living "on a dirt road". Well, it comes with pros and cons. Fortunately, the road is graded quarterly, removing most potholes, puddles, or most other imperfections. Of the few benefits, unimproved roads are limited to a 50 MPH speed limit, which can be a good thing if you don't want traffic rushing by your house, and can make it somewhat safer for bicycling, walking, or other pedestrial pursuits. Of the "cons", you mostly have to deal with driving a dirty car a lot of the time (not a big deal to some folks), and that snow removal priority is less than that of the local paved roads. (In other words, they get to plowing the gravel roads at a lower priority than the main roads and the rural paved roads.) But how often is that a problem? Just maybe a couple of times a year.

One other strange "benefit", so to speak, is that if you happen to own a "neighborhood electric vehicle" or NEV, for short, they are totally legal on gravel roads, due to no "posted" speed limit signs. Otherwise, NEV's are limited on paved roads in Michigan to those with a speed limit of 35 MPH or less. Amazingly, on Saline Waterworks Road, the entire road as legal for NEV's up until last year (2009) when they raised the speed limit from 35 to 40 MPH on the paved section. But you can still drive into Saline in a NEV, provided that you literally drive through a church parking lot, cross back over S-WW road, and into the Northview subdivision. But that's another story.

As you continue west out of Saline, most homes are located right on the highway or further back in on a long driveway. There are a few subdivisions located further west, one of which is located in Sunset Court (on the south side of the road) west of Dell Road.

Moving further west, the homes are interspersed with farms, the further west you go, the more farms you drive by. One of the first few farms you pass by is Cornerstone Farms South, a facility for horses. But also, the road narrows as well, as there is a one-lane bridge towards the west end. But along the way, you can see fields, small forests, and maybe even some cows...

However, one farm in particular (see enclosed photo above) happens to be a shooting location for a major motion picture. The farm at 9980 Waterworks Road was used for part of the filming of the upcoming movie Scream 4. Who knew?

Saline Waterworks Road ends at Schneider Road at its west end, the last two miles are within Bridgewater Township, with a Manchester mailing address (and Manchester schools).

(Day 18 of "30 in 30" challenge)

A long time ago, during the stone-age, when I bought my last home, I worked with an agent who obviously knew exactly where all of the homes for sale were in his town. We looked at something like 16 homes in two days. For the in town homes, we found them quickly, the agent didn't have to read the directions/cross-streets on the listing or anything, just drove straight to them. However, I was also looking for homes outside of town, and then the agent was TOTALLY lost. Had to stare at the directions on the paper copy of his listings, got his county and township maps, and after driving back and forth in several directions, we eventually found the house. I didn't mind, as I dragged this poor agent across three counties, eight school systems, and several interstate highways. I really didn't expect him to know everything outside of town and I knew I put him through a lot of work.

Fast forward to today. On some "day long showing parties", where I take a person or a couple through several homes in one day, I rely on a GPS, but again that's mostly because we did the same thing I did to my poor agent years ago. I actually know my home town pretty well, as well as nearby townships. (I live west of town so I know most of the rural roads very well, too.)

However, not all GPS's are equal, or for that matter, the real problem is the data that the companies (Garmin, Tom-Tom, Magellan, etc) rely on to provide street and address info. I happen to live in a place where many GPS's fail. On Dell Road, west of Saline, the house numbers go sequentially up from north to south, however, the numbers overlap near the intersection of Dell and Saline Waterworks, near where I live. GPS's will fail to find my house (north of Waterworks), and will point them to an open field (SOUTH of Waterworks). So delivery guys, repairmen, contractors, vendors, bicycle repairmen and just about everyone else, trip themselves up and end up calling me to find my house. So when they get lost and call me on their cell phones I ask, "Are you staring at a cornfield?". If the answer is yes, I tell them to turn around and drive 1/2 a miles north.

Of course, this makes finding houses for sale on my street a bit hard unless the agent KNOWS where everything is.

One other thing, though, what about emergency response? I mentioned in another post, I've had emergencies happen before where I had to make sure police, fire, and ambulance personnel can find me.

I spoke to the Washtenaw County sheriff's office and their dispatcher KNOWS about our addressing and the way it's been since several new homes and subdivisions have sprung up. We also have BRIGHT GREEN signs on our mailboxes, provided by the Saline Fire Department to make our addresses visible. (See picture to left!) Although they say our addresses are known and mapped out properly before being dispatched on calls, the signs are now mostly an aid, just in case. The signs aren't the primary tool used to find our homes in case of a fire.

So I can rest easier, as well as anyone who wants to live out here. I did also speak to the township, and the assessor I spoke to years ago said that with different officers and officials long ago, they "chose" to do the numbering that way. THEY SAID if the homes were to be numbered using the systems and personnel as they have today, this numbering confusion wouldn't happen...ever. (So they say...)

(Day 17 of the 30 in 30 challenge!)

While I concentrate what's going on in real estate, now we take a left turn and talk about TOOLS we use, such as desktop computer, laptops, netbooks, smartphones, and other things like the iPad. But first we'll specifically talk about the first "half", namely computers. I may get to smartphones and other devices in a later post.

First of all, a little bit of a disclaimer, I was a computer technician in a recent former lifetime. I have computer biases and some of my favorite types of operating systems. That, and I'm certified to work on PC's and have a Certified Computer Examiner certification, which means I can find deleted files and search your computer for kiddie porn. In my own home, I have at my disposal:

- Three WindowsXP PC's.

- One Windows7 PC.

- One Mac Mini with OS/X Snow Leopard.

- And one DEAD PC of which no longer has an operating system, perhaps the hard drive has bitten the dust. But more on that one later.

I'm not going to get TERRIBLY geeky on you all, but I don't intend to start a flame war, either. However, I AM interested in what you folks reading here think about the various platforms and what works best for you.

Windows: Love it or hate it, it IS the predominant operating system and platform for desktop computer and laptops. Or rather, it used to be described as an "IBM PC" or "IBM PC clone" (something LIKE a PC, but not made by IBM). I had worked on these systems since the first IBM PC. Yes, people complain they are buggy or they crash, or they're prone to viruses, spyware, malware, and all that. It's true, But indeed many folks will maintain that if you're careful, they can be just as reliable or as safe or SAFER than a Mac. Currently, my two newest systems are on Windows, but that's only because one of them is my wife's PC (she really only wants the same machine as she uses at work) and the other is a netbook that I use that can run my local Board of Realtor's website that DEMANDS you run Internet Explorer and use ActiveX controls. Or in short, you basically HAVE to use Windows. Okay, my netbook is cheap and one of the reasons it IS cheap is because it has Windows installed. A decent MacBook would be more than double the price of my little netbook.

Mac: Yes, it's a CULT. But yes, it's not a prone to crashing, or getting viruses, or being very buggy in general compared to Windows PC's. But part of that reason is what one I.T. professional calls "security through obscurity". Most of the viruses out there are for Windows PC's, as they're a BIGGER target. But indeed I prefer Mac's myself because I have fewer issues with them. But that's me. Since the release of the last "family" of Mac operating systems, or OS/X, the actually underlying computer code in it has proven vary stable, plus variants of OS/X are what also run the iPhone and the iPad. (Not exactly, but it's basically all BSD Unix under the covers). But in short, it's fairly stable because it's Unix-based underneath, but also it not as popular so therefore it's a bit safer to run than a WindowsPC.

Linux: Lin-WHAT? Linux. I mention this because actually, Linux runs on many servers operating websites all over the world. (Actually, a special version of Linux also operates the entertainment systems on Delta Airlines passenger video displays!) Linux was developed in the 1990's by Linus Torvalds, a programmer that wanted to just sit down and write a good, simple operating system that worked like Unix, but was to be shared and easily modifiable. But back to our story, Linux has the attractions of being FREE and being able to run on almost any OLD PC, or even on recent Macs with Intel processor chips. If you have an old PC sitting around that you don't use and it's about 10 years old, you can probably wipe the hard disk (remove Windows) and bring the computer back to life and running fast again with Linux. It can be just as crash-proof as Macs (seem to be), but you run into the problem of support, because there's no ONE Linux, there are over 600 flavors, or "distributions" of Linux. They're not controlled by one company, it's "open source", or that is, people all over the world contribute to writing Linux and making their own "custom" versions for various uses. As wonderful as everything sounds, Linux is solid, but getting help or support is not as easy as Windows PC's or Macs.

I would prefer to use Linux, if I were to use it for just general browsing and if I could get to some sites that don't care about what browser you're using. But since I can't, I'm using a Windows PC right now to check listings through my local MLS and local board website.

I can go over more details of all 3 operating systems in future posts, BUT for now, I'm just scratching the surface to perhaps discuss pros and cons from you all reading this.

(Day 15 of "30 in 30" challenge)

Williamsburg On The River(Map)

I often get asked about where I live and the first thing I hear is, "Isn't it just NOTHING but FARMS???".

No, not really. I live out there and I'm not on a farm. Actually there's some neat homes and some are quite nice if not perhaps a bit luxurious for around here. Just west of Saline, west on Austin Road and north on Dell, just off to the east, is a subdivision, carved out during the 1990's as "Williamsburg On The River". Probably it's only big drawback is that's what everyone has on this street for an address..... Makes for filling out forms and writing out bills a long, tiring process. (Just kidding!)

Seems quite interesting once you enter the subdivision, you go down a long tree-lined gravel road, then the homes appear. Most of these homes are on 10-acre lots, with a few 3-acre lots squeezed in between. There are 15 lots, nine of which have $300K to $800K homes on them, the rest open.

Yes, the road is gravel, and the some homes have gravel driveways, some asphalt. But you could just as easily do concrete out here (it would probably cost a bunch, though!).

But with 10 acres, you can probably have just about enough space to have a horse or two. Seems like folks just have the space to enjoy the quiet and the woods nearby.

Click here for a Visual Tour. At the time of this post, there are no homes for sale in this neighborhood, however, it gives you an idea that indeed, here out where the farms are, there are indeed, lovely homes.