To buy or not to buy - the neighbor's house looks like a building from zombie apocalypse movie

Hello friends,

Recently I saw a house in a booming suburb in Sydney. It is only 1k from Metro station and shopping centre. It is a 3 bedroom house sitting on a quiet street, old, fibro house with weatherboard cladding. It looks to be reasonably well maintained.

I am buying a house to live in and the price is in my budget.

But I am unsure about one thing;

The next door neighbor's house looks like a house from the zombie apocalypse movie. The paints peeled off, the roof is falling apart, the garage door fell off the hinge and hanging, so on and so forth. The neighbor's house is the only house on the street that looks like a haunted creepy house, every other house in the vicinity looks ok.

The agent told me the neighbor's house is not abandoned. Apparently the owner comes to live in that house a few times a week only. The agent said he previously spoke to the neighbor and was told they are not selling, but they gave no indication of what they are planning to do with that house.

Although I am buying a house to live in but you never know if I will be selling and moving in 5 or 10 years down the road. Do you think I should be concerned about the neighbor's house impacting the long term growth potential? Or do you think I should be concerned about shady characters breaking into the house and take residence in the building and posing security threat?

Thank you.

 

Nah I personally wouldn't care.

 

Don't ask the agent!
Ask the other neighbours!
They will give you the good oil!
I hope this helps

 

The house over the road from us was a bit like that. A fibro shack, barely liveable. An elderly woman lived there, she didn't have money to maintain anything.

She died, her kids sold the property to a builder. Builder knocked it down, built a beautiful 4 bedroom house on it. The builder make a tidy profit and it lifted the value of the entire street.

Talk to the neighbour a bit more. Don't rely on the agent for this info.

 

Often the case, pensioner who is asset rich but cash poor and can't maintain the building.

Had similar down the road both elderly, spouse passed away but arguments about inheriting etc (kids from first marriage vs rights of surviving spouse - who had only been married for 25+ years).

There are always circumstances which are not known to new comers (even if you have lived there a long time).

 

Its not like its filled with druggies. Just badly kept, right? These are the prime targets developers go for. In a way, the elderly person that keeps an old house in good nick is more likely to oppose redevelopment.

 

@Scott No Mates LOL. That's the sort of info you'd never get from an agent. I'd probably get that through my wife having a cuppa with the other neighbour across the road who's gossiping over the fence with another local!

In this case, I'd be doing a door nock and trying to talk directly with the owner of the property.

 

Usually after midnight and wears a long robe with long canine teeth? Sorry bad joke aside, if it is not infested or inhabited by junkies, who cares? Like many said, maybe just someone old with little money to do the upkeeping. Ask the neighbours.

 

Personally for a PPOR I'd be speaking to other neighbours and the person/people in the decrepit house themselves. If it's going to be a direct neighbour like that I'd want to be making sure there's no mental health issues that might impact my family. Best case they are friendly and just not up to the maintenance, worst case they have some issues which could become dangerous. After seeing friends of mine go through living with a psycho neighbour it reinforced how much value good neighbours add to a property you live in.

 

I would not worry about it, a newcomer to the street with the right vibes would use the state of the next door property to lower the purchase price on the property your interested in ..imho..