Corner lots- updated, looks like a no :(

[SusanBAnthony]

How do you feel about them? How do you account for that in the price you are willing to pay for a house?

We are in negotiations for house attempt #2, and I do truly love this house. Which means I am getting emotional, and DH is getting mad at me for getting emotional, lol. He is Mr. Analytical.

Anyway, house is awesome but it is a corner lot. We have figured out what it is worth just looking at straight comps, but none of them are on corner lots. Would the corner lot affect how you compare it too comps? Our realtor gave us the stat that 16% if people won't even look at a house on a corner lot, but he didn't have a specific dollar amount of how much less the house is worth bc of that. Price range is 215-200K ish.

Thoughts?

[wawa]

It very much depends on how the house is set up on the lot.

There is a house I LOVE in our neighborhood - except it's on a corner lot and the way it's setup it has this HUGE front yard, almost no backyard and no privacy. That kind of corner lot setup would be a deal breaker for me.

On the other hand one of our best friends has a corner lot where their house is facing on one street, and their detached garage faces another - so their backyard is still fairly private, and not too small. That one works for me and wouldn't effect my view of it's value at all.

So...yep, that's probably not at all helpful.

[SusanBAnthony]

The house has two side yards and no back yards. One of the side yards could easily be fenced for kids and dogs, but it would have no privacy.

Google seems evenly split on whether it is better or worse. I would much rather not have a corner since we are in our yard a ton, so the privacy is nice (hello naked kids in the yard!) so I know I am coming at this with a bias. We do love the house though.

[thiswillbe]

I agree with Wawa.

The house would have to be situated just right for me to even consider it. I'd also want to know exactly where the lot lines were if there wasn't an existing privacy fence.

[tarheels]

This has always been SO strange to me. I don't get the dislike of corner lots - you get more yard, at least here you do anyway, so what's not like? Better than having a neighbor's window look right in your bathroom, IMO. Two of our houses have been corner lots and they were listed for, we paid, and they appraised for, the standard price per sq ft for the neighborhood - no adjustment in the price because of the lot was ever discussed. Maybe this is regional? I've just always been baffled by this as a "thing."

[MrsAxilla]

Corner lots are no better or worse than any other lot. Some are great and some suck. We love, love, LOVE our corner lot. We only have one neighbor and none of his windows overlook our yard. We have total privacy.

Our last house was also a corner lot and because of the varying elevations in the neighborhood, we had three neighbors staring directly into our teeny, tiny yard.

In the end, it's a judgement call with no right or wrong answer.

[boiler717]

I've always thought they were a negative. My parent's house is situated well -- house directly faces the street, side-load garage, big backyard. The corner lots in our neighborhood are canter style so they are diagonal on the lot with small triangle shaped back yards. I'm not a fan of those.

[pitterwoo]

We're on a corner which means no neighboring house on one side and plenty of additional street parking so it's a huge plus for us. Sounds like it's a case by case thing.

[kaylie]

I don't like the fact that it limits the backyard. We saw two corner lots while we were looking. They both ended up selling in line with the standard lot comps, but it took a bit longer.

[auntie]

Nov 5, 2012 22:38:09 GMT -5 tarheels said:

This has always been SO strange to me. I don't get the dislike of corner lots - you get more yard, at least here you do anyway, so what's not like? Better than having a neighbor's window look right in your bathroom, IMO. Two of our houses have been corner lots and they were listed for, we paid, and they appraised for, the standard price per sq ft for the neighborhood - no adjustment in the price because of the lot was ever discussed. Maybe this is regional? I've just always been baffled by this as a "thing."

I think it depends on the situation. In the neighborhood where I grew up, corner lots were considered premium lots. Most had the standard back yard as well as a large side yard.

My previous home was a corner lot- it was certainly the best lot on the street- on the creekside with a township park directly adjacent. I had a neighbor to one side and across the street.

The corner townhomes in the next subdivision have larger yards and nicer side entry facades than those mid-block. They tend to sell for 10-15% more than others.

In a community where I would be responsible for snow removal and side walk maintanance, I wouldn't buy a corner.

[Deleted]

Nov 5, 2012 22:38:09 GMT -5 tarheels said:

This has always been SO strange to me. I don't get the dislike of corner lots - you get more yard, at least here you do anyway, so what's not like? Better than having a neighbor's window look right in your bathroom, IMO. Two of our houses have been corner lots and they were listed for, we paid, and they appraised for, the standard price per sq ft for the neighborhood - no adjustment in the price because of the lot was ever discussed. Maybe this is regional? I've just always been baffled by this as a "thing."

This! It isnt' at all a "thing" here either. I actually know a lot of people who prefer a corner lot. The yard is bigger, no neighbors on one side and easy access in and out. BIL and SIL just bought a house and requested a corner lot for those very reason. Also, in their case they got a much better view.

The only thing that would dissuade me was if it was a busy street and I had kids. In your avg. housing dev. though it wouldn't bother me at all.

[SusanBAnthony]

Well this is not a larger lot at all. It is exactly the same size. The view out the windows is more private, but there is no back yard, so no yard privacy at all. That is what I don't like, as we are in the yard a lot. There are also hire street assessments, higher sidewalk replacement costs, and lots more shoveling.

It is a quiet neighborhood street, so traffic is not a concern as much as the lack of private yard.

[SusanBAnthony]

Oh, and the main positive from googling is apparently a larger lot, but we don't have that, so for me, there aren't really any positives.

Perfect house = does not exist! Shocking, right?

[simpsongal]

It's so hard to compromise when your house hunting. You'll learn the deal breakers as you look at houses. You get that - "No, I wouldn't want to live here" feeling.

Chiming in - we love our corner lot. We have a huge lot, lots of privacy, side-loading garage, and the house is nicely angled. Very well-appointed. The corner lot did not factor into our appraised value though. Our yard isn't as deep as non-corner neighbors, but I'll take the corner lot over the garage in the front and have neighbors so close to the sides of the house.

[minniebee]

The corner lot you described sounds like something that would be a deal breaker for me.

Overall, I think it's a case by case thing. The house we are selling has a very nice corner lot which had a big lot premium when the house was built. Neighbors only on one side, and bigger than most of the other lots in the development. In our house hunt in our new city, we've looked at several homes on corner lots that were terrible.

[stephm0188]

We have a corner lot.

I won't lie- it was almost a deal breaker. I found the house online and the price was really low for the neighborhood. There was going to be an open house, so we drove by to scope out the house beforehand. We initially thought "Oh. That's what's wrong. The backyard is tiny."

But it's not really. The depth from the back of the house to the back of the yard is the same as our old house. There is a lot of space on the sides of the house... enough to play ball with the kiddo and whatnot. We're actually on one of the largest lots in this portion of the neighborhood. I didn't think I'd like it, but the reality is that I love it.

[Susie]

Around here corner lots tend to be bigger, and therefore worth more.

If, as in your case, the corner lot was not bigger, it might be worth less to me. It'd be less private, and you have bigger setbacks for fences (so the fenced area for my dog would be smaller if the yard wasn't larger to compensate).

Ultimately if you're within $10k with the sellers and you really like the house, I'd suck it up and try to compromise. Trying to put a dollar value on a thing like corner vs. inside lot is difficult. I don't think it'd be a dealbreaker for your ability to sell it later.

[emjacobs]

I don't like them because to me it means you get to have road noise on two sides, but I also live in an area that isn't a development or neighborhood.

So for my house if it was on the corner I would have tractor / cow trailer noise on both roads where as I only have it on the road in front of my house right now.

[SusanBAnthony]

Update: our agent thinks that given the house, the lot, and the comps, it is worth 215. List is 225. They countered 224, final offer. They must not be in a hurry to sell, good for them!

Part of me feels stupid worrying about 10k. Paid off over 30 years, it isn't that much more a month. But, we don't know that we will stay in the house that long. It might be more like five years (no plans to move but we relocated here for a job and could relocate again sometime down the road). If we sell, that 10k difference is suddenly a pretty big check to write if the market stays flat and we can only sell it for 215. Even with small appreciation, minus realtor fees, we could be writing a check if we overpay by 10k now.

On the other hand, housing prices have increased in the last five months. So if they keep increasing in the spring, we could be kicking ourselves.

There is nothing else for sale that we are interested in our top neighborhood. We are not necessarily stuck on this particular neighborhood, but we would need to go out and do a ton more looking to even figure out if there are other neighborhoods we would consider.

[emjacobs]

Nov 6, 2012 16:33:57 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Update: our agent thinks that given the house, the lot, and the comps, it is worth 215. List is 225. They countered 224, final offer. They must not be in a hurry to sell, good for them!

Part of me feels stupid worrying about 10k. Paid off over 30 years, it isn't that much more a month. But, we don't know that we will stay in the house that long. It might be more like five years (no plans to move but we relocated here for a job and could relocate again sometime down the road). If we sell, that 10k difference is suddenly a pretty big check to write if the market stays flat and we can only sell it for 215. Even with small appreciation, minus realtor fees, we could be writing a check if we overpay by 10k now.

On the other hand, housing prices have increased in the last five months. So if they keep increasing in the spring, we could be kicking ourselves.

There is nothing else for sale that we are interested in our top neighborhood. We are not necessarily stuck on this particular neighborhood, but we would need to go out and do a ton more looking to even figure out if there are other neighborhoods we would consider.

If the appraisal comes in at $215k most lenders will not finance over that, so if the seller won't budge it probably is best to walk away. There will be another house.

[SusanBAnthony]

Yah, I would hate to pay for an inspection, then find out it won't appraise.

W can always offer again in a couple months if it is still on the market.

[kaylie]

Try not to freak out over low inventory. This is a traditionally slow time and even if housing prices are going up, they aren't moving very fast. I was freaking out about the same thing when we bought our house and it worked out. We had really low inventory and it was super competitive - we had three bidding wars. It made me jumpy and we almost bought a house we would have regretted. I told myself to stop trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and that made me feel better.

[SusanBAnthony]

Nov 7, 2012 11:21:06 GMT -5 @callmefia said:

Have you explored the cost of owning vs buying over 5 years?
We purchased based on where we want to be for a long time. I was taught that a house is not a good short term investment and the fact that so many of our friends can't sell or are underwater is enough to convince me.

We will pay as much if not more to rent per month than to buy. Given how low interest rates are, a decent chunk of our monthly payment will go to principal. We are comfortable taking the risk that we might move in 5 years, because frankly i don't know if we will ever be able to definitively say that we are staying in a house forever, at least if the job market stays as bad as it is now.

The rental choices are either a tiny dumpy house for the same cost as the mortgage on a much nicer house, or paying several hundred more for a decent (but still not *nice* house). Plus DS is going to be going into kindy and has special needs, so we need the stability of living in a good school district and not scrambling for a new house if a lease is not renewed. The rental stock is extremely, extremely low, if not nonexistant, in the better school districts.