Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Seems like there aren't many homes with private pools in the area. Do neighborhoods not allow it? Ideally I'd like a screened in pool. I am not interested in using a community pool. Will my home value lower drastically?
Some neighborhoods' restrictive covenants prohibit pools, so you need to check on that while looking and buying.
A well-planned pool will not lower your value drastically. You can expect not to get your investment back, but if it is nicely integrated into the flow of the home, to promote use and with a good "wet entry" to the house, you may have something desirable.
Pools do not add value to a house. Also be aware that you must have it fenced in. We have had one for a decade. As long as you understand you will not gain back the costs, it is a lot of fun with the family. Besides laying in the water at night staring at the stars is as peaceful as it gets.
I've had pools before. Whether they add value or not depends on the next prospective buyers. Some buyers specifically want them, and hence will be willing to single out houses that have them.
They cost a little work and money to maintain. But if you have kids or large families, they are great. At the end of the day, value is in your eyes, measured by your own enjoyment, not by future resale value.
A lot of the lots here are so small that if you want a pool you'd have to dive in directly from your back door.
I think there's limits on how much non-porous stuff (how's that for a technical term?) you can have on your lot. So the patio around the pool could cause issues.
If you had a lot of land (likely outside a subdivision), none of this would be an issue. Also I doubt any HOA is going to let you do one of those enormous lanai's like you see in Florida, if that's what you're referring to as far as screening it.
Your home value won't necessarily be "lower" but chances are you house will take a lot longer to sell if you put in a private pool in most subdivisions in the triangle. Few people want to pay for/do the maintenance and upkeep of a private pool especially when there is one that you are already paying HOA fees for in most newer subdivisions. I'm sure there are buyers out there specifically looking for a home with a private pool especially in the high-end market ($600k+)
If you plan on living in the house for a long time and really value having your own private in-ground pool (I doubt there's any neighborhood that will let you put an above-ground pool in) it may make sense. If you only see yourself there for a few years and want to make money back when you sell; chances are it's not a wise investment.
Last edited by TarHeelNick; 03-08-2016 at 10:01 AM..
We are going through this currently. We struggled to get over our last job assignment location in Florida and that house / pool. We ended up moving here and buying a small lot in one of the popular West Cary neighborhoods. We ended up selling that house last fall, and buying a house in un-incorporated Apex with a much larger lot. We were unsuccessful in finding anything that met our criteria with a pool already in place. They were all $600k plus, or the pool's needed to have a complete renovation, or just removed and started from scratch.
We frankly would have paid a premium for a house with a pool, but there just wasn't anything available. While the "pool" of buyers looking for pools may be small, the decent houses with decent pools is even smaller in my opinion.
Be prepared for sticker shock on pool install costs here locally. It's significantly more expensive than in areas like Florida where almost every house has one. I was shocked with what our basic pool install is costing.
To address some of the speculation above:
A pool is no different than any other improvement on a property, so property set-backs, permitting, zoning review, would apply. It varies by what zone, lot, existing easements, etc.
Impervious surface becomes quite the limiting factor here particularly the closer you get to Lake Wheeler / Swift Creek. We passed up a few great houses / lots as there was just no way to work around the existing impervious surface issues that already existed on the lot. It's not always just a simple calculation, as you can also mitigate water run-off in certain areas to gain additional % impervious. We were fortunate to buy into a small subdivision in which there the HOA owns a large amount of greenspace, and that impervious surface was then allocated to the individual lots on the recorded plat. Our plat allows us a much larger amount of impervious than what the zoning would normally allow in that area. The Swift Creek Watershed Manager was very helpful via email.
Your home value won't necessarily be "lower" but chances are you house will take a lot longer to sell if you put in a private pool in most subdivisions in the triangle. Few people want to pay for/do the maintenance and upkeep of a private pool especially when there is one that you are already paying HOA fees for in most newer subdivisions. I'm sure there are buyers out there specifically looking for a home with a private pool especially in the high-end market ($600k+)
If you plan on living in the house for a long time and really value having your own private in-ground pool (I doubt there's any neighborhood that will let you put an above-ground pool in) it may make sense. If you only see yourself there for a few years and want to make money back when you sell; chances are it's not a wise investment.
I actually have seen in ground and one above ground pool in an HOA neighborhood. I agree, that you need to do your research. The home with the above ground pool did take a long time to sell and the new owners took it out.
I do think that in newer subdivisions they are making the pools very resort like and I doubt in those neighborhoods you would want to pay the HOA and you own pool maintenance.
I also wonder if there is a rule that says pools must be a certain distance away from property lies.
We put in a pool about 1 1/2 years ago, in an HOA neighborhood. There was a rule saying how far it had to be from the property lines, and there was also a rule about how large the pool was in comparison to the yard size.
This isn't our forever house, and having the pool may make our house harder to sell down the line, but it's our home now and we wanted to do it for us, not for whoever may own it in five or ten years.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
