Buying a brick house without front facing windows (Houston, Weir: real estate, houses)

[2peaches2oranges]

I see a lot of these in my house search here in Houston. The homes are built in the 1970's. Love the look and the inside floor plan. Does anybody live in one? Am I going to regret not being able to look outside at the front of my house unless I open the front door or put in a camera? Benefits? Can't be that nosy neighbor? Thinking of putting in an offer but trying to think of the upside or of any downsides? Thanks.

[oceangaia]

Those are fugly. Did the builder look at the plans upside down? Those look like the backs of houses with a front door stuck in.

[Samiamj]

My sister lived in a Sugarland house built in the 1970s without front windows. This was before the Ring doorbell. She hated it because she never knew who was coming over. She just saw the back yard only. She didn’t care for it. They lived in it for four years and moved out to a regular house.

[houston-nomad]

I like the contemporary style of these houses. You could replace the front door with an all-glass one, then you might not feel so closed off.

[Thoreau424]

Weird, completely weird. Like some kind of prison or asylum. You sure those pictures are real?

[Ghost Town]

Yes, like a prison.
I've seen houses like these.
Don't like this concept.

[gwarnecke]

Our first house was similar to those - a custom 1970s contemporary with only a single window at one end of the facade. I loved the house but wasn't wild about the face - it always looked a bit monolithic and foreboding, like a villain's lair. The interior was beautiful though, with high ceilings and lots of windows at the rear of the house.

Another house on the street was a 1970s french style house that was even worse - it had literally no windows on the front and looked very strange. Most of our neighborhood, including our whole street was flooded during the post-Hurricane Harvey reservoir releases. As a part of his rebuild, my neighbor added a couple of windows to the front of his house, which made a HUGE improvement.

[resonator]

Resistant to drive-by shooters.

[jerbear30]

A LOT of houses in Houston have that look. I regarded them as curiosities until my wife and I started looking for houses this fall. Our real estate agent called them "patio homes"--I'm still not entirely certain what that means. But I did go in to a few while house hunting. Most have plenty of light, it's just not the front. I kind of like them because they're soooo different than most of the houses in the midwest where I grew up. I sort of think of them as "Houston homes."

[Oskar_Z28]

I don't like these. Rented one for a while during Harvey, hated not being able who comes up to the house. I would not own one.