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I have a question that has been nagging me for years.
I have noticed that many folks that took the effort to move far away from "the city" and settle on multiple acres, end up placing their home up close to the road their property borders.
Why move away from the crowds of city dwellers but then place your home up close to a road?
It makes no sense to me.
I can tell you that we did that, but put the house waaay back from the road. Hindsight being 20/20, we should have put the house closer to the road.
We spent a fortune getting the driveway paved.
We spent many wasted hours mowing the front yard.
It was expensive and time consuming to plow snow.
Nobody saw my cute porch decorations.
In areas which experience real winter, it's about power and plowing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MidValleyDad
Not only driveway but utilities. It costs money to run power in from the road. Also at least here where it snows, the effort to keep the driveway/lane open from accumulated snow. .
Once you get more than about 100' away from the road, the cost to bring in power climbs fast, can expect to pay as much as $50/foot all-in just for wires+poles+labor. And the homeowner is responsible for keeping trees clear from all the lines downstream of the transformer (aka "secondary mains").
Clearing snow and ice from a long private driveway can require significant effort and expense.
Even with 4WD, once the driveway turns into a sheet of ice, you're not driving coming up that without a set of tire chains and a lot of patience. And even if you don't need to get in regularly in February, still need the propane guy to be able to top off your tank.
I bought a house a few years ago that was built in the late 1970's, the lot itself is steeply sloped with the house halfway down the hillside, but all wooded in the front up to the road so keeps down any erosion issues. In the winter I usually park by my mailbox at the top of the driveway as the garage itself is nearly 50 ft down in elevation. The area itself is far cooler than the concrete convection oven city 35 minutes away, often by 8-12F at any time of the year.
I have often thought of this question. Thank you to those who provided explanations! It's all about the Benjamins.
No, it is not. Cost is only one of the reasons, and not necessarily the critical factor.
Sightlines and privacy might actually be better near a road. Obviously, I am not talking about highways or other major roads, or any with much traffic. Rural parcels vary so much even within one region that you just cannot judge by any canned factors.
Another factor sometimes is what houses are already built around the parcel, and how THEY are placed. If you have a quarter section of dense trees this isn’t as much of a problem as a 20-acre parcel of open fields. Again, one rule can’t fit all places.
I like living far from the road.
I really enjoy the privacy.
You can’t see our house from the road or me if I’m not properly dressed trying to get something from my car.
There are reasons to do either.
Some of the negative ones for living far from the road are,
Utility costs
Loss of power due to fallen trees or branches
We have to load garbage cans into an suv to drive to the street on garbage day.
We also have to drive to get our mail.
Snow can be an issue.
For me I think the privacy thing outweighs all the negative issues and I can’t see me ever living on a road again.
Southern areas are not going to have many issues with snow, and for those looking to live in a more remote-type rural area, it is kind of a given you are going to be driving farther for everything. Hauling the trash to the road would be annoying though.
When we look at these properties, we want to see the home away from the road, but the desired distance is correlated with how well-traveled the road is. If it is a busy highway and the home is 50 feet from the road, we move on to the next candidate.
We don't mind paying for paving, provided the driveway isn't more than 100 yards or so. We don't even need more than a few acres if the acreage is private. We just don't want to hear road noise, or the neighbor's children and lawnmowers, and we prefer the house be obscured from the road. It's is hard to find acreage that is private enough without needing 3-5 acres minimum. Even if it is a lightly traveled road, we prefer the home be at least 50 yards from the road.
If you want privacy, you need acreage (or to abut conserved land)
Quote:
Originally Posted by lpc123
Southern areas are not going to have many issues with snow, and for those looking to live in a more remote-type rural area, it is kind of a given you are going to be driving farther for everything. Hauling the trash to the road would be annoying though.
When we look at these properties, we want to see the home away from the road, but the desired distance is correlated with how well-traveled the road is. If it is a busy highway and the home is 50 feet from the road, we move on to the next candidate.
I used google street view, didn't even bother going to see a house which was right up against a road.
We don't have trash pickup, so hauling isn't the issue. The quarter-mile roundtrip down to the mailbox and back is annoying. And in the winter the UPS guy wusses out and drops my packages right at the base of the driveway, doesn't even try to come up to the house (FedEx is generally better)
Quote:
Originally Posted by lpc123
We don't mind paying for paving, provided the driveway isn't more than 100 yards or so. We don't even need more than a few acres if the acreage is private. We just don't want to hear road noise, or the neighbor's children and lawnmowers, and we prefer the house be obscured from the road. It's is hard to find acreage that is private enough without needing 3-5 acres minimum. Even if it is a lightly traveled road, we prefer the home be at least 50 yards from the road.
Even being so far from a smaller road, I still get a bit of road noise once in a while, mostly open-pipe motorcycles and sometimes a truck shifting gears.
If you want peace & privacy, you need acreage (or to abut conserved land). One of my friends two towns over has just a couple of acres adjacent to a farm, and it was nice and quiet... until the old farmer died and his kids sold to a developer who is now putting in a several-dozen-home subdivision where the farm was.
He stressed out for a year fighting against it at planning board meetings, and even offered to buy the strip of land abutting his property as a buffer zone, but ultimately the developer got what he wanted.
IIRC, UPS has some rule that the drivers aren't supposed to drive more than 100' down a driveway, or some such nonsense. Some drivers follow it, others don't. My security systems alert me to anyone in the drive, and I generally know the day of delivery, so no issue.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned about rural property peace and quiet is that gunfire is common. Often it is target practice, sometimes pest critter SSS, sometimes hunting. Some areas have nighttime ATV and/or snowmobile activity.
My house is 120 yards from the pavement. I have a 45 acre square parcel, approximately one-quarter mile on each side. One side is a river bank.
The forest in our township is all dense trees and brush. From my house you can not see anyone else' property, nor house. None of my neighbors can see my house.
I have a front-mounted snowblower that goes onto my 25hp Massey-Ferguson tractor. It takes me four passes to completely clear our driveway. It is actually kind of fun.
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In areas which experience real winter, it's about power and plowing.
If you want privacy, you need acreage (or to abut conserved land)
