No front garden/driveway

Mimikyu

We're currently in the process of looking at houses, one in particular we liked doesn't come with a front garden/driveway. Most of the houses in the estate do, but this is one of a few that doesn't. There are two parking spaces a few doors down on the road, this house opens on to a path and then it's a public green area, no road.

The only concerns off the top of my head are coming home from work or in the evening and finding people parked in your spaces and having to find somewhere else to park, and in the future not being able to get an electric car due to not being able to get a charger installed. (There's also some other rarer scenarios I'm sure you'd work around like getting a skip, or getting a large delivery/work done on the house/garden)

I'm just wondering does anyone have any experience with this set up, and how did it work out for you? Or would this be not worth the hassle?

Kurooi

I wouldn't want that set up personally. If it doesn't have a front garden, what's the story is your door right on footpath or road?

Some consideration when relying on road parking is how busy can the area get , are there shops, parks, pitches, schools nearby because with some of these areas on peak days you won't find street parking within 300m radius. Then also consider the age profile of the estate. If right now you're seeing people in their 30-40s moving in they'll be fine on one car. but watch this space soon enough they get a second one for supermarket trips and then their kids grow up and soon enough in mature estates I see most households have 2-3 cars and park on the street.

It's not ideal. I'd much prefer a house with a driveway, another thing it does is puts some distance between you and the public it's a big factor to how comfortable you will feel in the home.

o1s1n

The no car charging port thing is a biggie. I've only on street parking myself and do wonder what will happen in the future when we all become more dependent on electronic cars.

Claw Hammer

Parking is a massive issue. It is potentially a source of massive frustration and aggravation in the future. Rows with neighbours are likley at some point as is damage to the car. Barge pole time!

ILikeBoats

Are the spaces down the road numbered specifically for the house you're looking at or are they free for anyone to use?

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120339971#Comment_120339971

Arriving home to find someone parked in the on street parking right outside your house is rage inducing.

Yes they are fully entitled to be there and no, it's not your space but that does nothing to stop the absolute indignation felt!

Then there's also people not leaving you enough space to parallel park or to even enough space to actually get out.

Personally I don't drive that much and the car is more of a luxury, so it's in the parking space 90% of the time - if I was relying on my car for the commute though I definitely would have bought somewhere with a drive. Would be too annoying to deal with only a daily basis otherwise.

Claw Hammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120340056#Comment_120340056

Whether they are or not, it won't stop assholes using the spaces. I had a next door neighbour a few years ago. Her daughter visited every day at lunchtime. She parked blocking my driveway even though there was plenty of room on the road besides the fact her mother had an empty driveway. The nuisance of being needlessly being blocked in or out is most annoying. Thankfully the oul wan has died and the new neighbours have more manners.

herbalplants

Lack of driveway is a deal breaker for me too.

Also the idiots of estate agents who sell you potential of an expired planning permission for a potential drive way in your front garden if you remove walls and pillars possible.

I would think long and hard how much about it if I was you. A house with no driveway should be well discounted in price.

rain on

It depends what your lifestyle is like, or your expected lifestyle in the next few years. I don't have a driveway, but I work from home and only use the car once or twice a week. Not sure I'd fancy searching for an on-street spot at rush hour 5 days a week. I'm also in a very settled area where the neighbours all get on, for the most part - we regularly move our cars to make space if someone is getting a skip delivered or having builders in, etc. I'm also not planning on having children - if I was, a driveway would be a must. Wrangling a baby and a toddler and a bag or two of shopping up the road or across the street on a regular basis would be a deal-breaker.

Deeec

The parking problem is a huge issue.

Also are you going to have people walking on the footpath beside your windows - lack of privacy would drive me crazy. There probably will be kids playing on the green area also which can cause problems.

I wouldnt buy it. The house could even be hard to sell in years to come because of these issues.

Princess Calla

Parking is a massive issue.

I wouldn't buy a house without a driveway now.

It just takes one crazy neighbour (unfortunately I had one) and your life is torture.

That said I've also had my driveway blocked by neighbour in another house.

Thankfully the neighbours here are "normal".

The reality is neighbours can make or break a house , so anything that limits unnecessary contact/conflict is a good thing.....so gates and driveway all the way.

Deeec

Deleted

niallpatrick

If it's a rental I'd pass especially if it's in a town, no front space facing a stretch of green or parkland =anti-social behaviour right outside your door. You need a barrier even just a bit of path and gates. Parking issues we had them but we also had scumbags banging our windows at night. It depends on the general area really but if it's high density border line socially/semi affluent deprived then avoid even if you do find somewhere with a path and a gate. Buying is a no! not without planning permission or the space to make a drive and gated area out the front.

Other factors, schools and bars nearby is the street a cut through? you've got to do the leg work checking the area over before booking a viewing. Hostels halfway houses, is it terraced with gable ends not gated and is there a central open alley from the front houses to the houses at the rear? crime figures demographics it all adds up. Estate agents and landlords will lie when asked a direct question about the locale. If I knew now what I didn't know back then I wouldn't have spent 11 years in misery and it isn't over yet.

Wildly Boaring

2 houses in our Estate have no drive. Non stop nick nacks. Both have even had their door damaged by kids kicking their doors.

Not a chance.

And yep one prick of a neighbour and no parking for you...

Mimikyu

Thanks for all the replies. Definitely food for thought. I was wondering was I over thinking it but obviously not judging by most comments.

Hoping to get down to view it again next week and will get a number of questions answered but unless I'm 100% satisfied will probably give it a miss.

Citygirl1

First point to check is whether you would "own" those 2 spaces. I didn't have that impression from your post. And don't take an estate agent's word for this. Regardless, people will use them, with absolute sense of entitlement, and likely nothing you could do about it.

Not quite the same, but I did live for 12 years in a townhouse in a managed estate. All assigned parking spaces in an underground car-park, and I never had problems accessing mine (as it wasn't a convenient spot). However, re the place you're considering, would observe:

1) People will park in your spot, leaving their own empty, if it's more convenient, if leaving their spot for visitors, their kids have cars, or just to assert themselves.

2) Not being able to drive to your door can be very inconvenient when bringing in heavy items, bags of shopping, or packing for a trip away.

3) Biggest issue: Having your front door and/or front window straight onto a common area or green area is recipe for a nightmare.

- Kids will kick footballs at your window/door "accidentally" or on purpose.

-Parents will assert the right of said kids to kick footballs in that exact spot, even if there's a better spot 10 yards away.

-Parents may engage in same behaviour. I more than once found a parent from apartments opposite (a friendly decent girl) and her child using my front step (and door) as goalposts. Which she believed was perfectly acceptable, on the basis that this was common area.

-People will set up basketball nets near your front window. The pounding of basketballs would drive most to distraction. And will hit the window.

-In my experience, I faced huge intimidation from scum, when I complained re above.

-Living with the above had quite an impact on my mental health. I came to look forward to the Winters, simply as they brought peace for a few months. While off work for cancer treatment, I learned to time my daily walk for when the kids came home from school.

As you may gather, I am incredibly bitter about my experience. The house itself was lovely, but I ended up moving, due to this and other issues.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058287686/no-front-garden-driveway

That would be an immediate dealbreaker for me.

I've read so many threads on this forum over parking disputes between neighbours, that I wouldn't even consider a home that did not have its own driveway with gates I could close behind me.

One of the things you can almost guarantee neighbours will be assholes over, is parking spaces, especially when there are not enough. Even if you own one of these spaces you mention, other people / visitors will treat them as public spaces.

In fact, I recall a thread not so long ago, where a woman was having major hassle from neighbours who were using her allocated parking, and bullying her horrendously.

I'd look elsewhere, but good luck, whatever you decide.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120339811#Comment_120339811

If right now you're seeing people in their 30-40s moving in they'll be fine on one car. but watch this space soon enough they get a second one for supermarket trips and then their kids grow up and soon enough in mature estates I see most households have 2-3 cars and park on the street.

This is definitely true of my estate, which has a lot of older families with adult children in their twenties and thirties still living with their parents (due to housing crisis). Some homes have gone from one family car to three or four, two on the driveway, and two outside on the road wherever they can find a space. Some will also squeeze into a space that is not really big enough, and are partially blocking driveways. But they pretend not to notice!

I've seen neighbours who have been friends for years, falling out over this. Sad to see.

This is it

It was a deal breaker for us when we were looking. Searching for a space or fighting over spaces outside your front door is rage inducing, not something I'd be happy to do long term.

We're sale agreed on a house with a small front garden and a drive for 1 car, or two very small cars, but we'll likely scrap most of the garden and make space for two cars.

Graces7

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120340206#Comment_120340206

Not very kind re a death...

Claw Hammer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120349016#Comment_120349016

It was a welcome release. For me!

spaceHopper

It sounds like the sort of place you'd rent but never buy. If you ever go to sell it you'll have the same problems as the current seller. Is it Landlord selling up?

Mimikyu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120352351#Comment_120352351

Sorry should have mentioned it's a new build. Only houses left are the few without front drives.

ec18

as someone who has a house with no front garden / driveway we wouldn't buy our house again. It'd be a deal breaker for us it's very annoying we have random people who park outside our door and no break between our front door and the foot path

billyhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120352544#Comment_120352544

Could you put cones up?

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120352886#Comment_120352886

Wheelie bins would be better than cones actually, more legitimate reason for them to be out the front of your house.

Creamy Goodness

Using cones/wheelie bins is a band-aid on the actual problem though. I'd never buy a home without a dedicated driveway. Not knowing what'll be parked outside my home every day is annoying just thinking about it. Sure it even annoys me when a car uses my driveway as a turnabout when one of the two cars aren't in the driveway (I might be taking that one a bit too far I admit).

You've worked hard to get to a stage where you're making the biggest purchase (potentially) of one's life, don't invite paper cuts into that process that you will live with for years.

Mimikyu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120352897#Comment_120352897

I know you didn't mention wheelie bins to me but made me think as there's no road at the house I'm looking at you'd have to drag your wheelie bins down pasts the neighbour's houses to the road where the spaces are.

I know it's not a first world problem, but I'd imagine it'd be a pain in the arse in winter in the lashing rain.

HildaOgdenx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120343391#Comment_120343391

Biggest issue: Having your front door and/or front window straight onto a common area or green area is recipe for a nightmare. 

- Kids will kick footballs at your window/door "accidentally" or on purpose. 

-Parents will assert the right of said kids to kick footballs in that exact spot, even if there's a better spot 10 yards away. 

-Parents may engage in same behaviour. I more than once found a parent from apartments opposite (a friendly decent girl) and her child using my front step (and door) as goalposts. Which she believed was perfectly acceptable, on the basis that this was common area. 

-People will set up basketball nets near your front window. The pounding of basketballs would drive most to distraction. And will hit the window. 

-In my experience, I faced huge intimidation from scum, when I complained re above.

That was my first thought too. Being very near the green space in the estate is not always ideal.

And the parents who are delighted once their little darlings are out of their hair and well away from them on said green space don't give a damn what they get up to. Which could well include kicking balls deliberately at your house and so forth.

Had that in one house which was across from the narrowest part of the green, ie where there wasn't room to play football or set up goalposts but some did for a while, even though there were much bigger spaces available to them. The dad did a big rant on the estate WhatsApp one time about his kids being sent home and nobody better dare to say anything to them again. That was not what happened but obviously that's what they told him and nobody dared to contradict him.

They moved out, thankfully, shortly after and there was great peace then.

As others have said, the other concern would be your parking space as more and more cars arrive, as children grow up, or in a situation with a rented house where there's likely to be a number of cars exceeding the spaces available.

billyhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120352897#Comment_120352897

Wheelie bins look unsightly out the front in a space and also factor in the wind blowing them over.

Doop

Could you ask the developer to install collapsible bollards on your 2 spaces?