Can Bad Neighbours Impact Your Property Price When Selling?
“Buyers decide in the first eight seconds of seeing a home if they’re interested in buying it. Get out of your car, walk in their shoes and see what they see within the first eight seconds.” — Barbara Corcoran
There are various factors that determine the value of a property. The most common reasons being location, maintenance, age of property, etc. Having a good or bad neighbour is also one of the factors that could impact property value and a crucial one. Of course, you cannot choose your neighbours, but everyone likes to live beside a good neighbour. What if you aren’t lucky and you end up with a bad neighbour next door?
While selling your property, your estate agent quoted a guide price which is much less than what you expected. What could be the reason?
Many insights into the property world report a bad neighbour can severely devalue your property price up to 10%!
On the other hand, having good neighbours can raise your property value up to an average of 9.4% in the UK. Property buyers are willing to pay more if they find a friendly neighbour living next door. This may be due to the sense of security if good neighbours surround them.
It is an issue one can do little about but unfortunately an untidy property next door will likely have a negative impact on the value of your own.
They may not be bothered about keeping their property clean and may have junk lying everywhere. The potential unpleasant odour coming out from the rubbish, broken windows, dirty fences, and their poorly maintained property unfortunately has a serious negative impact and could devalue your property price.
What could you possibly do?
You can’t throw them out from their house neither should you quarrel with them. Of course, you can make them understand how much financially you are losing due to their actions. You can politely appeal to them to maintain their property – sometimes a financial contribution or an offer to help over a weekend can pay dividends.
The issue is, you have no rights to insist that they rectify cosmetic issues so you will have to rely on goodwill of the property owner.
It might not be possible to get them to improve their home, in which case you will have to ignore the issue and hope for the best, or take a long term view and where possible, grow shrubs or trees to obscure the ghastly view.
