what's your thoughts on driveways with an incline? (Raleigh: real estate, new home)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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We are eyeing a house that has a slight incline on the drivway. Up here in the Northeast, that kind of lot seems to feel more prestigious (not sure that is the exact word I want to use but you get my drift). Just curious if that is how things are viewed in the south. Is it beneficial to be on an incline considering there are no basements?
I don't like too much of an incline because I am coming from chicago and I keep thinking how treacherous it will be in the ice and snow....LOL. But that is probably not a problem i need to consider. I also dont like it for the fact that the kids can slide right out into traffic on their bikes maybe.
We have an inclined driveway and there is a no biking/blading etc rule but we have a blast when there is snow! I don't think there is any positive or negative to it.
My neighborhood has a couple of homes that "sit up on a hill" and have a long driveway at an incline, I honestly think it is personal taste. The weather (snow/ice) just isn't prevalent enough to have that factor in the decision. For me, we ruled those houses out because we have little kids and I wanted them to be able to ride bikes, etc on the driveway.
The people who bought them liked the idea of being on top of the hill.
As a real estate agent though, I have a house listed with a "slight" incline and about a third of the comment have been "driveway too steep". So, it seems like many people out there do not like steep driveways. When my old neighbors sold their house with a steep drive, they had about half of the people comment on it as a deal breaker for them to buy the house.
As a real estate agent though, I have a house listed with a "slight" incline and about a third of the comment have been "driveway too steep". So, it seems like many people out there do not like steep driveways. When my old neighbors sold their house with a steep drive, they had about half of the people comment on it as a deal breaker for them to buy the house.
I totally agree. When my wife and I were looking to buy we were turned off by several homes that had too steep of an incline. In some cases the home was up on a steep hill and in others the house was down a steep incline. It was definitely a deal breaker for us. In the end we did get a home on a slight hill with a bit of an inclined driveway, but not too steep....it is about as steep as I would go. That being said, we are on the corner of the street and I do enjoy being at a bit of a higher elevation becasue when I am sitting is the upstairs bedrooms all I can see looking out the windows in the nice blue sky instead of stairing directly across the street at another house.
Bottom line, I personally would not buy a house with an extremly steep driveway. Slight incline ok, but anything more than that is a negative to me. I think nice level lots are more appealing to most buyers.
We are eyeing a house that has a slight incline on the drivway. Up here in the Northeast, that kind of lot seems to feel more prestigious (not sure that is the exact word I want to use but you get my drift). Just curious if that is how things are viewed in the south. Is it beneficial to be on an incline considering there are no basements?
When we moved my husband insisted on a flat driveway. (We each has a list of 'must haves' and 'would be willing to compromise on' - the driveway was on his 'must have' list).
Anyway....I didn't understand why, we passed on several very nice homes that I loved because of it and I tried to talk him out of it.
LOL...then came the first ice storm. The neighbor across the street whose driveway is at upward incline couldn't get her Mustang into the garage. She ended up parking on the street and walking up next to the drive way in the grass in stocking feet because she couldn't walk up an icy driveway in her heels.
Two doors down (on my side of the street) they had a downward sloping driveway.....that same ice storm they hit their garage door when they couldn't stop in time on the ice (though if they had opened the door first they should have been able to stop once on dry concrete.)
I am very happy we have a flat driveway and bow in my husband's general direction over insisting we have one.
we also found several beautiful new homes but were put off by the fact that the driveways were too steep - main issue wasn't the steepness but the fact that they were short and steep. It amazes me that the developer didn't realise that when they did the plans and moved the house back 10 foot to give a better approach when driving up to the garage.
On checking with the Wake County records web site we saw that these houses had been completed a year earlier and it would appear that all other potential buyers had similar issues as we did regarding the steepness of the drive
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