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Neighbours, Everybody Really Needs Good Neighbours

  • 7 years ago

Neighbours, Everybody Really Needs Good Neighbours

Great neighbours don’t just make you happy during the time you live in your house, they make your house more valuable when it comes to selling time.

Thankfully, more than half of the homeowners in the UK are happy enough with their neighbours that they socialise with them and three-quarters would say their street is friendly and welcoming. This is great news, but when neighbours aren’t so warm, it can cost dearly, according to research from Privilege Home Insurance.

Bad or unfriendly neighbours can seriously reduce a house’s value and affect how much buyers are willing to pay.

Undesirable traits

Neighbours with untidy front gardens, ill-kempt driveways and cluttered yards can reduce the asking price by more than £17,000.

If the neighbours are friendly and helpful, however, with a mown lawn and maybe a trellis or two, this could mean an extra £20,000 to the final price.

This adds up to a difference of £37,000 between bad neighbours and good ones! This difference is, as most things are, magnified in London, where house prices are hovering around an average of £470,000. There, a bad neighbour could cost £83,000.

The most off-putting things a home next door can have are broken or boarded up windows – this, the research reveals, could knock off nearly £23,000 from the value of an average British home.

The biggest turn-offs are cracked, broken or boarded-up windows, which will lower a neighbour’s asking price by up to £23,000. Then come ugly extensions, clapped-out cars, bikes or other junk in the driveway or front garden.

Unfinished building work, rotten or damaged window and door frames, dirty exteriors or dodgy-looking gutters can also cause the value of a neighbouring house to drop.

Of course there’s not much you can do if your neighbours aren’t willing to keep their homes in good repair, or if the house next door to you is empty. It’s possible, of course, that you could help with a tatty front door or an untidy garden, but realistically you’ll have to hope that you have good neighbours who are friendly, respectful and like to keep their gardens in order.

Thankfully, you’ll find you’re in the majority if you do!

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