Effect of neighbors on home resale value?

[disykat]

I'm spending a lot of time painting the interior and exterior of our house getting ready for a possible sale. However, I wonder if it will matter much because of our neighbors. The neighborhood is nice and tidy (groomed yards etc.) except for these neighbors. Our house is in great shape and should look really good after painting. The neighbors have a car on blocks, lots of weeds, no landscaping at all in their back yard (the view from our deck - we've put up a fence and lattice etc. to try to block this), a huge dirt pile in front of their porch where they tried to fix a septic problem, ... you get the picture. They were supposedly being foreclosed on last year, but somehow they're still there.

I guess my question is - would you buy a house if the neighbor's house was in bad shape?

 

[shep]

We passed on buying a house once because a house nearby was similar..

 

[olena]

No....to be honest.

There might be a city or county code against the cars parked on blocks. I'd check into that. My grandmother had the same problem with some neighbors. She called the cops and local government about it. The neighbors were forced to move the car.

I know how you feel though. We just had our siding fixed, as it was defective. Ours wasn't as noticeable, because the house had been painted frequently enough. On some other houses in the neighborhood, the siding is falling off. It looks awful. I wish our Covenants Committee would go after them.

You might also consider planting some of those fast-growing cedars along the property line. They shoot up fast and make a tall and attractive barrier.

 

[disykat]

I figured people would say that. We wouldn't buy it either now. When we moved in, the same neighbors were there, but it didn't look that bad yet. A little bit of cleanup would go a long way towards making it livable, but I can't figure out how to approach them. We're not in city limits and our homeowners association can't really do anything except suggest improvements, which they have done. I'm looking through our covenants again and I'll check with the county.

Shoot!

 

[olena]

I feel your pain....*HUG*

The neighbors who lived across from my childhood home had the car in the yard and didn't have trash pick-up. They threw all their trash in their back yard. The lots in the neighborhood were only 3/4 of an acre. It didn't take long for a dump to encompass most of their yard. The rats were awful and running through our yard, too. A few calls to the cops and it was cleaned up. Not long afterwards, my Dad put the house on the market.

 

[Mskanga]

I know that the houses in your imediate area have an impact of the value appraisal, that's what I was told three years ago when we had ours appraised. I know that our association does nothing about cases like this also, they claim they can only give them citacions and fines and people disregard those. We have three houses in my street who fix cars in the home for a living , and another one that has a taxi service with at least 5 cars in the driveway.Nobody is supposed to run businesses like this from home specially fixing cars without a permit. The township says they are looking into it , the people claim they are picking on them because they are a minority, so the war is still going on.
My girlfriend moved out of this development 2 years ago and sold her house, my other girlfriend is trying to sell her house now for a year and no luck , we at least are still on the good side of the comunity , there are only 5 houses on our part of the road , three of them are vacation homes , only my neighbor across the street and us are permanent residents, but now they are planning building another house next to my neighbor across the street, we are actually praying that the perk test fails!

 

[disykat]

I guess I'm fortunate that it's not as bad as some of you have had. It really is just not very attractive and is starting to look pretty run down. Our neighborhood is less than 10 years old so it's pretty sad that something can look run down in that period of time. It kind of stands out.

I don't exactly have a great relationship with these people so it's not like I can even hint to them to clean up while I have my house on the market. They know I called the health department on them over their sewer problems and that I called the police when I caught a teenager living at their house (not one of their kids) having sex in my yard. In the past I've cleaned up random garbage from like pop cans etc. from their lawn, I just don't know how far I can go. Do you think they'd notice if we went over with a weedeater?

 

[Dodie]

I'm not sure of it's impact on your actual property value, but the true impact may be in the people who decide to NOT buy because of it.

Unfortunately, we passed on buying an AMAZING home three years ago because of what was next door - similar to what you describe.

I just think you need to be realistic about it going in and make your place as desirable as possible.

 

[Mishetta]

Funny this thread should come up today since just yesterday we passed on viewing this awesome house due to it backing up to a very old neighborhood & the people right behind this house look like they run a junk yard!

ALSO, our house backs to an older neighborhood & while it was kept up nice for years, the new people that moved into the house bedhind us last summer, could care less about their yard! They have let weeds grow & they put up this really junky swing set & they have all kinds of junky banquet type chairs in their backyard. It's unsightly & now I'm nervous about people not wanting to buy our home due to the backyard. My one neighbor has her home up for sale & has had many open houses & even tho the house behind her house looks great & is freshly painted, people leave & tell the Real Estate agent that they don't like it that these homes back up to an older neighborhood! Imagine if they saw what's behind my home!

This could indirectly bring down the price of your home because people will end up making really lousy offers.

Good luck to you. Sounds like we'll be in the same boat in a couple months!

 

[FOJMO]

NOPE.

 

[disykat]

We're not ready to put it on sale yet, just getting ready in case dh gets a new job (won't even be starting his job hunt until July). I guess I'd better just start praying now!

Thanks for the support! Sometimes it just helps to worry outloud!