Would you buy a house with a shared driveway?

[MrsE]

We have been passively looking for our next home in our current area since we will not be moving to CO. We saw a house in one of our ideal neighborhoods a couple weeks ago that was almost perfect. The biggest downside was that it had a shared driveway. Another house just came on the market and it has all but 3 things on our wish list AND a few major bonuses. However, one of those 3 things that I do not like is having a shared driveway.

Do you share a driveway? Would you ever buy a house with a shared driveway? I guess this is more common than I realized in some of the older neighborhoods around here. Am I overreacting to automatically cross a house off our list if it will not have our own driveway? I foresee potential challenges with neighbors. WDMMT?

[niq]

We looked at several. they're fairly common in the denser neighborhoods in our city. I think we came very close to putting an offer on one, but decided not to for other reasons (visible water damage; they wanted us to pre-inspect or waive inspection and disclosure since it was estate sale).

Does each house have a separate parking pad or garage, and just the driveway is shared? Or would you actually have to go bug your neighbors every time you wanted to move your car? If it's the first I think it's fine.

[Deleted]

Our driveway is separated from our neighbors driveway by a teeny strip of grass / trees / bushes and I thank the lord for that little strip. They aren't horrible neighbors, but they aren't great either (and they treat their little doggie terribly). I am very glad we can be working on a project in our garage or washing our cars and we are separated by the privacy plants we put in.

Even on the other side, where we love our neighbors, I would prefer not to share. However, if I loved the house, and met the neighbors beforehand and they seemed ok, I might be more flexible, knowing how hard housing is to come by in this area. But, largely, if it can be avoided I think it would be good.

[MrsE]

There are not separate pads. The house we looked at had a garage, although its technically in the backyard, at the very end of the driveway. It was used for storage but I would probably park a car in there. I do not think the neighbors had a garage. If they did, they were parked in the driveway too and not using it.

[boiler717]

I think having a shared driveway where you need to park would be really hard with moving cars in and out. Is there sufficient guest parking or would those be in the driveway too?

[Deleted]

We don't have one currently but we had one growing up. We had a neighbor with about a hundred cars but he kept his is his side and we kept ours on our side and it was a non-issue.

[MrsE]

Meh. Now that I write it out and really think about it I would not be happy sharing a driveway. Although I love the house, the neighborhood, and mini apartment above the garage, I think the driveway is a deal-breaker. We have our own driveway now that requires us to park in tandem and it annoys me to have to ask DH to move his car if he's parked behind me. Although the potential house's driveway is big enough to fit two cars side by side, just thinking about DH & I parking in tandem and the possibility of needing to ask neighbors to move over a bit could be a total PITA. Bummer.

[dexteroni]

I wouldn't mind if it was two lanes, where we could each keep to our own sides, like this.


But I wouldn't want one where we had no choice but to share one lane, like this:


If shared one-lane driveways are common in your area, it might be that big of a deal resale wise. I just think it would be a pain in the ass on a daily basis.

[luvmagoldn]

Nope. H has said no when house hunting before. To him, too much room for drama with parked cars, toys being left out, etc.

[kadams767]

Feb 8, 2014 16:24:20 GMT -5 MrsE said:

Meh. Now that I write it out and really think about it I would not be happy sharing a driveway. Although I love the house, the neighborhood, and mini apartment above the garage, I think the driveway is a deal-breaker. We have our own driveway now that requires us to park in tandem and it annoys me to have to ask DH to move his car if he's parked behind me. Although the potential house's driveway is big enough to fit two cars side by side, just thinking about DH & I parking in tandem and the possibility of needing to ask neighbors to move over a bit could be a total PITA. Bummer.

Is there on-street parking?

We currently have a driveway where we have to park tandem and it is really not a big deal to us. But our last home had no driveway, period, so this is actually very nice for us. I live in an urban area though, and a ton of houses in my neighborhood either share a driveway or have no driveway at all. It would take a very, very long time to find a house if we ruled out every house we looked at that didn't have a non-shared, non-tandem driveway. The house itself was way more important to me and the driveway issue. It literally takes 2 minutes to switch cars if we need to.

[MrsE]

It's kind of in-between those two. It is styled like the first picture with just one solid driveway without true division but wider like the second one (just not *that* wide).

[MrsE]

Feb 8, 2014 16:44:25 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Feb 8, 2014 16:24:20 GMT -5 MrsE said:

Meh. Now that I write it out and really think about it I would not be happy sharing a driveway. Although I love the house, the neighborhood, and mini apartment above the garage, I think the driveway is a deal-breaker. We have our own driveway now that requires us to park in tandem and it annoys me to have to ask DH to move his car if he's parked behind me. Although the potential house's driveway is big enough to fit two cars side by side, just thinking about DH & I parking in tandem and the possibility of needing to ask neighbors to move over a bit could be a total PITA. Bummer.

Is there on-street parking?

We currently have a driveway where we have to park tandem and it is really not a big deal to us. But our last home had no driveway, period, so this is actually very nice for us. I live in an urban area though, and a ton of houses in my neighborhood either share a driveway or have no driveway at all. It would take a very, very long time to find a house if we ruled out every house we looked at that didn't have a non-shared, non-tandem driveway. The house itself was way more important to me and the driveway issue. It literally takes 2 minutes to switch cars if we need to.

Yes, there is also on street parking directly in front of the house.

[shell24]

We're on a cul de sac and our driveway isn't shared but curves and for half of it there is no grass/separation between our neighbors.

That is supremely annoying enough. I could not do an actual shared driveway-that's what you mean, right? One driveway and you each get half? No way would I do that.

[kadams767]

Feb 8, 2014 16:46:06 GMT -5 MrsE said:

Feb 8, 2014 16:44:25 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Is there on-street parking?

We currently have a driveway where we have to park tandem and it is really not a big deal to us. But our last home had no driveway, period, so this is actually very nice for us. I live in an urban area though, and a ton of houses in my neighborhood either share a driveway or have no driveway at all. It would take a very, very long time to find a house if we ruled out every house we looked at that didn't have a non-shared, non-tandem driveway. The house itself was way more important to me and the driveway issue. It literally takes 2 minutes to switch cars if we need to.

Yes, there is also on street parking directly in front of the house.

Well, I guess it is a personal preference, but I am not bothered parking in the street, especially if it is within a few houses. If on-street parking is at a premium and you'd have trouble finding a spot everyday, that is something to think about, but if that seems unlikely, I definitely wouldn't have a problem with a shared driveway as you described. We'd probably normally just park one car on the street if switching cars annoyed us.

[zarapipe]

Can you snipe a picture from the listing of just the drivewAy?

[alare]

Feb 8, 2014 16:48:36 GMT -5 tillie said:

Absolutely not. Not sure where you are now, but do you get snow? What about shoveling, de-icing, etc., lawn mtnc. or when company comes over (at either place). No way would I do it.

This.

[anna7602]

This is not something that would bother me, but I have spent most of my life living in very densely populated areas. Many people I know deal with the move-your-car-because-it-is-blocking-your-spouse's on a regular basis and it's not a big deal.

[CloudBee]

Never. We walked away from a house that had a shared driveway. It's not the daily logistics, it's the fear of dealing with maintenance and a possible future neighbor that won't take on 50% of the responsibility. That - and how does HO insurance handle liability? Not something we wanted to navigate through.

[noodleoo]

I would not. But I hate having to deal with sharing/moving cars. Our house originally had tandem parking and we made the builder widen the driveway so we could park 2 cars side by side. Sharing a driveway would be a deal breaker for me unless there were no other option.

[jr009j]

We're on our second house with a shared driveway. A dedicated driveway was on my wish list for this house but not a deal breaker.

I think they're fine as long as you have a good neighbor. At our old house, we shared with a rental. There was room to park 2 cars up top and the driveway was inches wider than a car. We had issues with the company hired by their management company shoveling only half the driveway which meant neither of us could get out. We also had issues where their guests would park in the driveway or in our spot. But issues weren't frequent.

Our current neighbors are great. The driveway is big enough that it's possible to park 4 cars without having to move them. They always check with us of they might be blocking the driveway. Out biggest issue has been snow removal as we have different philosophies of removal. They like to shovel immediately and then throughout the day. DH likes to wait and use his snowblower later. We're slowly working out a schedule with them as I don't want to be the bad neighbor.

[MrsE]

Thank you for the feedback. We will keep our passive search going while we continue saving. We will likely hold out until something closer to perfect is too good to pass up. Truth be told I think I was more in love with the InLaw/au pair apartment in the back than the actual house itself. I like our current home better, just the neighborhood, basement, and apt of the other house better. The driveway is probably why the list price was much lower than our planned budget.

[magdala]

Feb 8, 2014 16:23:43 GMT -5 @crackhabit said:

But a major reason I wanted to buy a house in the first place was to not share things anymore

This is only one of the reasons I would not buy a house with a shared driveway.   Tandem driveways (as they are called up here) are very common.   Several sets of good friends have this situation and hate it.  They seem to have to deal with all of the snow shoveling as well as blocked in cars or dings from their neighbors or their neighbor's workmen or guests.   I tend to think of home as a refuge from other people annoying me.  

[speckledfrog]

My first thought was snow removal. Mostly how pissed I would be if I had to do more than my fair share of it. Add in having to play musical cars and no thank you.

[schitzengiggles]

Ugh, no way. Although I don't think I have ever seen one in the places I've lived...and I am imagining sharing a driveway with my last neighbor before we moved to our current city. OMG. That would have been a disaster. It was bad enough sharing a zip code with him.

[Ashley&Scott]

Nope.

[MixedBerryJam]

Feb 8, 2014 16:19:52 GMT -5 boiler717 said:

I think having a shared driveway where you need to park would be really hard with moving cars in and out. Is there sufficient guest parking or would those be in the driveway too?

That would absolutely be a dealbreaker for me. A shared driveway is bad enough, but having to ask your neighbor to move his car so you can get to work in the morning? Absolutely not. What happens when they turn out to be assholesawho want to mess with you? That said, id the house is perfect in every other way, can you put a circular drive in the front yard? A house not too far from me did that and it looks great. They put in some nice landscaping and the driveway.

[daisypaloma]

We saw one house with this situation: great neighborhood, in our price range, walking distance to things; and the house we're looking at granted easement to the back house to share the driveway to get to their parking garage. 

I just think it's such a hassle.  If/when we have visitors, they would not know not to park on the driveway (which will block the access to the back house).  I can just see it as one big nightmare to have to deal with for years.

Unless we also own the back house (aka rental), I would not do it.

[anna7602]

Am I the only one who would never arrive at someone's house and just assume I can park in their driveway? This seems incredibly presumptuous unless it's a longtime/close friend.

[Deleted]

Nope.

Our neighbors share a one lane driveway that leads to two parking pads behind their house. It was never an issue until one house was sold and the new owners use the driveway like their own personal parking lot.

And people who fuck with my parking enrage me.

[rt2008]

We're renting a side-by-side townhouse right now. So we share a driveway with the other half of the townhouse (we have separate garages) but we also share a driveway with the townhouses next door to us as well. So it's like a 4-person driveway. It's pretty big and not the biggest deal, but I will say it's somewhat annoying and that I would not want to buy a house with this. We're saving money for a downpayment, so this is not where we'll be for too long, so I can deal with it for me.