Which house would you choose to buy?

amother

Cyan

Mon, Feb 11 2019, 10:04 pm

Fully detached with shared driveway
Or
Semiattached with private driveway

All other things comparable, such as size, condition, neighborhood.

amother

Babyblue

Mon, Feb 11 2019, 10:06 pm

How many cars do you have and how many cars can the shared driveway accommodate?

amother

Dodgerblue

Mon, Feb 11 2019, 10:07 pm

Shared driveway meaning side by side, or front and back? If street parking is challenging where you live, I would only share a driveway side by side.

Rubber Ducky

Mon, Feb 11 2019, 10:07 pm

Fully detached. You can make a lot more noise when you have no shared walls.

Fabulous

Mon, Feb 11 2019, 10:26 pm

semi attached and private drive.

I live semi attached and while we hear a bit of noise, it's not a ton and not such a big deal. Parking is. Also, heating costs are much lower when not fully detached. Just a thought.

Queen18

Mon, Feb 11 2019, 10:27 pm

If you are really going to base your decision off this post you should be more specific. If you are in Brooklyn in an area where it’s hard to park with alternate side - it’s not a question - get the private drive 100%

Last edited by Queen18 on Mon, Feb 11 2019, 10:44 pm; edited 1 time in total

Optione

Mon, Feb 11 2019, 10:27 pm

Fully detached.
Does shared driveway mean that your driveways are attached or literally one spot for both cars?

doctorima

Mon, Feb 11 2019, 10:30 pm

I don't know where you live and how easy street parking is. But in Brooklyn I would definitely take a private driveway over a detached house.

amother

Aquamarine

Mon, Feb 11 2019, 10:57 pm

I would choose the private driveway. You probably drive every day, and that's a major quality of life issue.

mig100

Mon, Feb 11 2019, 11:48 pm

Queen18 wrote:

Agreed

amother

Cyan

Tue, Feb 12 2019, 12:02 am

Queen18 wrote:

Yes, Brooklyn!!

amother

Cyan

Tue, Feb 12 2019, 12:05 am

Optione wrote:

Fully detached.
Does shared driveway mean that your driveways are attached or literally one spot for both cars?

Shared, as in long and narrow, park in driveway and work out arrangement with neighbor , such as different days of week, or both park and ask to move when need to leave ...

dankbar

Tue, Feb 12 2019, 12:14 am

amother wrote:

Shared, as in long and narrow, park in driveway and work out arrangement with neighbor , such as different days of week, or both park and ask to move when need to leave ...

That's a pain in the neck. Every time you have to roll out your car, you have to get hold of your neighbor? What if they're not available?

nicole81

Tue, Feb 12 2019, 12:34 am

Is there a way you could pave away some of the front of the house (garden, walkway, etc) to create a carport by the detached house? If not, then definitely go for the semi-detached.

I live in a semi-detached and the only time I ever hear my neighbors is on Superbowl Sunday or during World Series games. Even with 6 kids at home and babies that scream through the night, my neighbor has remarked that he never hears us. He did tell me, however, that he knows my husband is amazing because he always used to hear my ex and I 😁

Rubber Ducky

Tue, Feb 12 2019, 1:10 am

nicole81 wrote:

Is there a way you could pave away some of the front of the house (garden, walkway, etc) to create a carport by the detached house?

This is a good idea. You can have the best of both worlds if you can carve out an extra parking space.

amother

Pumpkin

Tue, Feb 12 2019, 10:03 am

amother wrote:

Shared, as in long and narrow, park in driveway and work out arrangement with neighbor , such as different days of week, or both park and ask to move when need to leave ...

No way would I want to sign up for a lifetime of that! Also, even if you work out a reasonable arrangement, what happens if they sell/rent the house to someone else, who is much less accommodating - as happened to me, shortly before I bought a house with a private driveway! Smile

amother

Dodgerblue

Tue, Feb 12 2019, 10:51 am

amother wrote:

Shared, as in long and narrow, park in driveway and work out arrangement with neighbor , such as different days of week, or both park and ask to move when need to leave ...

In Brooklyn? Never ever. A private driveway is worth waaaaay more than a private wall.

Amarante

Tue, Feb 12 2019, 11:00 am

I would not want to share a driveway under such conditions unless I lived in a place where there was ample street parking. I grew up on a street in Midwood where parking wasn't an issue at all because it was all single family or at most two family homes.

Also if you are buying a home in most places in Brooklyn, there isn't that much difference between semi-detached and detached because the space between houses is so narrow anyway. My childhood home in Midwood didn't have parking problems but you could hear everything that went on next door when the windows were open.