I have my house for sale. We have been doing our best to keep it clean, and unfortunately that means most stuff has been moved to the garage. As a result the cars are sitting outside for another week until I get it all sorted, and either to the dump or the storage unit.

MY neighbor is pretty cool. He has three small kids, and has been pretty much a model neighbor for the 5 years he has lived there. They keep all the kids outside toys in their garage, meaning they keep both of their cars outside too. This is where the rub comes.

They have people over 4-5 times a week, and given our house is for sale, the sign is in the subway. Now, I know his wife cuts hair under the table at their house (she is a stay at home mom), but between her parents, and her customers, they pack end to end in front of my house (not their house), and tonight we had a showing, and they never walked it. Our RE agent called the booking agent and they said there was no place to park, and it gave the potential buyers a bad feeling.

eff me. I really hope this shit is not effecting our ability to sell our house. Any suggestions? There have been a few times when the neighbor's customers pulled into the lawn (in the rain) and left ruts - which I photoed and let the neighbor know and he fixed them. I know it is a City owned street, but why can our guests park in our similar length driveway, and theirs can't?

I think I would politely mention the situation to your neighbor. Maybe he will try to correct it. It’s worth a try.

Can you keep 1 of your cars on the street when you have showings so there is an open spot for the client and tell your realtor to put a note on your listing's private details to double park the driveway if needed? Leaving a note on the listing might sound bad, but if it doesn't come up the realtor probably won't mention it to their clients.

I take it your driveway isn't long enough to park multiple cars deep, or were the neighbors blocking your driveway? If they were blocking you I'd have a nice chat about that with them. Not cool, regardless of your selling the house.

I would take mine out of the driveway and be gone when they are showing so they have a place to park. get as much stuff out of the garage storage.


potential buyers seem like flakes and if that is an issue how many more are they going to bring up.

When I shop for a home, one of the first thing I do check for adequate parking. Its not just a convenience issue, I want the fire dept. to be able to cozy right up to the house if need be. Then I look (and even meet, if I can) at the neighbors to see if can get a handle on them. Since I may spend up to 30 years next to them.
So the situation you describe might lead me to pass on your house. If I was truly interested the place, I would make several visits at varied times of the day and night to better gauge the parking.

quote:

Originally posted by 280nosler:
I really hope this shit is not effecting our ability to sell our house.

It already has.

quote:

potential buyers seem like flakes

? They can't even park to view the house. I'd view that as a problem and they haven't even gotten out of the car.

quote:

Originally posted by braillediver:

quote:

Originally posted by 280nosler:
I really hope this shit is not effecting our ability to sell our house.

It already has.

quote:

potential buyers seem like flakes

? They can't even park to view the house. I'd view that as a problem and they haven't even gotten out of the car.

I'd pass on a house that neighbors had so many cars it was spilling into the front of neighbors houses. I would not want to live somewhere where I have to beat the neighbors home to park, not would I want to see their cars.

I'd talk with your neighbor.

Not to change the topic, but a comment about selling houses.

We recently sold a house in Roxboro. The potential buyer made an offer, said she was doing a conventional loan through her bank.

Unbeknownst to us and all the real estate agents involved, the dippy broad decided to go VA instead, and never told anybody, even her own agent.

Ended up costing us some $4K. I was not personally involved as wife and daughter were handling it. Had I been, I would have told her to piss off.

The VA inspector came up with a 3 page list of "deficiencies". One of which (as an example) was that the base of the pull down steps to the attic did not sit completely flat on the floor when pulled down. There was no wobble, etc.

Word of caution regarding sale of the OP house. Do not accept a VA loan! The pain and expense are simply not worth it.

Talk to the neighbors about it. If they do not address the problem, report them for running a business out of their home, and since they probably do not have a license, they will find it to be cumbersome and expensive.

If that had happened to me I would not want to buy your house either. Neighbors that close together can be a real concern to potential buyers.

I would most likely pass on a house that had cars parked in front of it. I personally hate street parking, and seeing cars on the street would be a red flag for me even if they were in front of a close neighbor's house. It wouldn't bother me occasionally, but if I got the impression it was a regular thing I would get a "bad feeling" as well.

When we sold our house in CA last year, we de-cluttered and got rid of about 2/3 of our belongings into storage or the dump. Then we staged the house- new interior paint, wall hangings, some furniture, rugs, etc. We staged the garage to make it look clean and larger. Also, we talked our next door neighbor into letting us hire a gardener to spruce up their front yard a bit, since their house curb appeal was less impressive than the rest of the neighborhood. All of this paid off, especially the garage, empty and clean, it looked massive to the buyer. My wife and I drove all of our cars offsite during open house and private showings. It was a pain in the ass to live like we're in a museum, but all worth it.

1)Talk to your neighbor about the problem. Your never going to see the guy again after you sell.

2)Park your vehicles on the street in front of the house and move them when you have a showing.

I am with the "talk to your neighbors" crew here as I would also pass on a house without parking.

If you are on talking terms with the neighbor, remind them that the more your house sells for will increase the value of his house.

Of course there are some a-holes which are only concerned with screwing their neighbors over by doing whatever they can to fuck up the seller's sale.

quote:

the sign is in the subway

What's a subway?

I'd ask politely if they could have their guest park in their driveway or in front of their house while you are trying to sell yours.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:

quote:

the sign is in the subway

What's a subway?

I'd ask politely if they could have their guest park in their driveway or in front of their house while you are trying to sell yours.

I’m guessing there are a couple of autocorrect booboos in his post.

I'd would have passed on the house too. Parking is a hot topic button for me. I absolutely adore my neighbor, but she rents out part of her house. At 1st, it was just 1 person, 1 unit. Now it is another unit with another person, that person has guests. Well, yes I've been the A-hole a couple of times & totally blocked my own driveway to get the point across that I do not appreciate someone parking in the closest spot to the homeowner's house. I consider it rude & un-neighborly & never do that to anyone else so I expect the same from my neighbors.

Well, apparently a potential renter was 1 of those people whom I parked blocking my driveway & they decided not to rent the place. She asked my husband why I am such an aggressive parker. He flat out told her I considered it rude & un-neighborly to take the closest spot to the homeowner so I don't mind being rude back. It got the point across & haven't had any issues in a few years. She has room to pull in farther in her drive so it should be fine to tell the people to park in the drive. I was gonna nip that issue in the bud before it became a major issue. I am pretty sure she does not have a license to rent out her place so if people start making the neighborhood not the nice place it's been, it will get reported. So far, her people have been very respectful.

I can't tell you how many homes we just drove past if the streets were too narrow or the parking a disaster.

Some of the middle of the road places I've lived had those streets that became a single land with people parked on both sides of the street.

Those were an automatic pass for me; could be the deal of the century but I hate narrow streets, crappy parking, and a neighbor that has a car lot.

Park your cars in front of your house. Move them right before a showing.

Park on the street yourself and/or use some orange cones to block off a few spots on the street when this sort of thing is going on, and have a talk with the neighbor.

Seems easy enough to deal with.