Open House Addict

My name is Mandy Kay, and I am an addict. I am addicted to real estate open houses. Even though I’m not in the market for a house. I can’t help it. I like to look. I guess you could call it house porn.

Mine is a familiar face to agents from Surovell, Reinhart, and Real Estate One. I used to tell them alibis like “my friends are looking for a house in this neighborhood,” or “I’m researching for when I finally have that empty nest.” But really, I just like to look – take notes on decorating, examine floor plans, compare values. So Sunday mornings find me scanning the paper, looking for likely subjects.

My favorite fix lately has been going to open houses of the new lofts downtown. And truly, someday after my child has graduated high school, I could see myself in one of these hipster enclaves. If I win the Powerball, that is.

At Liberty Lofts, I tried to envision myself in a one-bedroom, and I just couldn’t do it. And while the location is great on these units in the old Eaton factory, there’s very little architectural character remaining. If loft means “plain box with exposed ceilings,” I suppose these qualify. Then there’s the problem with the large retail space that is part of the complex, and currently unoccupied. Real estate agents I’ve spoken to speculate that the rent is too high. I’d be hesitant to buy into Liberty until I knew who was going to occupy that 20,000 square feet. I mean, really, what if they lease to the Michigan Republican Party headquarters?

Some people find the location of Loft 322, on Liberty next to Seva, a little too close to campus. But I have to tell you, these developers got the “lofty” feel right. The stained concrete floors and exposed elements are tres cool, as are the large balconies. But the kitchen is just odd – they’ve basically wedged everything into about 8 linear feet of counter and cabinets running along a single wall. It feels as if the kitchen is part of the hallway leading to the main living space. And, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but way too much square footage is devoted to the bathrooms. You could host a poker party in one bathroom I saw, it had so much empty, open space.

Kingsley Lane hasn’t been built, but they have a sample unit displayed in the sales center. I love the amenities – their architects and designers put a lot of thought into making the most of compact spaces in a multi-functional, graceful way. The island in the kitchen, for instance, has under-cabinets on wheels – you can roll them out of the way to make dining or entertaining easier. But the storage and parking options are perplexing – if I understood the agent correctly, storage in the complex comes in the form of small pods for which you must pay extra. For $400-600k, I don’t want to pay extra for a “pod” – pods are for music files, not seasonal gear that I can’t fit in the apartment. And parking is not included in the high price tag, either. Developers are “giving away tennis shoes and bikes to home buyers as part of marketing efforts” to underscore their environment-friendly cred, says the Kingsley Lane website.

Good intentions, but as long as I can’t find a place to buy toilet paper and Tide downtown, I’m going to need my car.