Buying A Home
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Would the condition of other homes on the street affect your decision?
My DH and I did a 'drive-by' of a house we love online. It's part of a small neighborhood consisting of two cul-da-sacs. Two of the homes on the cul-da-sac, that this is house is on, are in pretty run down condition. It's an older neighborhood (1980's). Would this deter you? Being part of a neighborhood is one of our requirements. However, it's also difficult to tell the condition of neighborhoods right now because we're just getting over winter where everything is brown and dead-looking. This house has a gorgeous, private yard and you can't see the other other houses from it.
ETA: Added link to house below. :-)
Re: Would the condition of other homes on the street affect your decision?
How run down is run down? Are we talking about people who haven't taken out the edger in awhile or are there non-running vehicles on cinder blocks?
H and I absolutely disqualified houses if they were on streets with run-down houses. Resale value was a major consideration in our process, since we felt like if the market ever had another down turn, we wanted to be in the best position possible to weather it.
Additionally, we want to like our neighbors and possibly befriend them. We don't feel like we would have much in common with people who don't take care of their home.
Difficult to tell given today's weather and the season. One house needed a bad paint job and the other was either in the middle of some work being done on their house or was in bad shape. I guess these would be questions to ask if we're able to look at the house.
If anyone is curious, here is the house
http://www.nneren.com/listing_detail.html?id=4139800&return=1
I can no longer offer logical advice, because I LOVE that home! How beautiful
But in all seriousness, yes, those would definitely be questions to ask. You may have just come at a time when some owners are renovating, or it may be an indicator of something worse.
It's a great house and for the right price I would go for it, especially if you were planning to stay there for a long time. I clicked around to a few of the other houses on Zillow and noticed two things:
- I'm not sure how old you are, but most of these homes look like they're still owned by their original owners who purchased them in the 80s or people who bought them in the 90s. That wouldn't bother me, but H wants to live near young people so that we can make more friends (eye roll - we're 27 and no one our age buys a house where we are).
- Is the house directly next door (3 Fawn) one of the more run down ones? It was purchased in '06 for $420K and it's much smaller than the one you're looking at. I worry that it might become a short sale or foreclosure and they might just be letting it go if they're underwater on their mortgage. There was another foreclosure in the neighborhood in 2011 which makes me wonder about the overall stability of the housing market.
Also, I'm not sure what your position is on popcorn ceilings, but it looks like this house has them. They aren't too expensive to get rid of, but I know around here everyone hates them.
For me I think it depends on how many homes are in the neighborhood - 2 homes out of 30+ homes that need some maintenance I wouldn't be that concerned about. 2 out of 10, yeah, I'd probably think twice, but wouldn't completely count the house out, depending on how good of a deal the home was.
How long are you thinking you'll be in this house? If you're looking at it long term, realistically there's nothing to say that even if 100% of the homes were currently well maintained that a few years down the road one or more might fall into disrepair or be foreclosed on.
Unless you live where there's an HOA you really have no control over what other people do (or don't do in thise case) to their homes. You also don't know that maybe they have plans to remodel in the near future. Who knows what will happen in the furture.
But - the people presently moving in, who knows what kind of care they'll take of their homes...
It's really all a crapshoot!
BTW - love the house. It's gorgeous.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
My last house was a great house in a somewhat crappy neighborhood. It seemed as though it was on an upswing when we bought, but it went downhill quickly (foreclosures, etc). I was seriously concerned about the resale value of the house because it this. Thankfully it turned out to not be an issue, but it was very stressful.
Our new house is in a fantastic neighborhood. That was one of my major requirements.
I would be concerned about this, but I think it would depend on how run down the other houses were. Where we are, the winter has made everything all "blah" with no snow to pretty it up. So the curb appeal of the homes are not at their greatest level right now. Most homeowners wait until spring to power wash their houses, clean up the yard, plant flowers, etc. If it is something like that, I probably wouldn't give it a thought.
If the neighborhood was seriously run down, I probably would not consider the house.
I agree with all of this. That said, I am struggling with a similar issue. I never thought I would buy a house surrounded by less maintained properties, but when you find a place you love, it's not such an easy decision.