Buying a house with no off street parking. A big issue?

dizziblonde

We bought a house with street parking only - wouldn't buy a house like the one we grew up in where the drive and garage were detached from the house though (imagine the streets like TT with the top bit being pedestrian only with detached garages - we were in the middle between two Ts... treking back and forward to the garage, then up the hill, around the corner, up the steps and through the house with bag after bag of shopping really drove me nuts as a kid (when bringing the shopping bags in was my job).

The on-street around here is generally ok - there are decent public transport links (about to get better) so a few houses that don't have cars providing spare parking spaces for those with multiple cars - and people generally abide by the "don't be a prat" policy and try to keep spaces in front of houses free - putting extra cars down the end of the street and whatever... of course, we're always aware that it would only take one idiot with too many cars and an attitude moving into the street to wreck things - but the turnover here is fairly low, and the lack of parking means that the house prices were affordable for us - they wouldn't have been with off-street parking and it's a nice area to live in.

shegar

sirmosh wrote: »

Just bought a house with a similar situation, didn't think it would be an issue as we always saw spaces available but now we've moved in it's a nightmare, there are about 20 parking spaces to the length of the road for about 40 houses (and many have more than one car). All the surrounding roads are packed and we keep finding there's just no where to put the car.

Luckily we have a pay and display beside us that we can use for free in the evening but it means being up early to move it, and there's usually no space to do that either.

I definately wouldnt buy a home with no parking, mostly because of the reasons above.........Its also not very good when you come back with the weekly shop of say about £60 quids worth of heavy shopping to unload, I had this when I had my 2 boys small, it was a nightmare trying to unload the car with shopping and plus got 2 small boys to worry over at the same time, its a deal breaker for me for definate because ive been there.......

phoebe1989seb

1886 wrote: »

I`ve been in streets before and seen ppl come out of their house once a car pulls away to move their car closer by literally a few feet. It takes over your life in some streets.
I think parking has got to be a huge plus when selling a house

Gosh, that brings back memories.......when we lived in the road with on-street parking we were forever looking out of the window to see if anyone moved their car. If they did, we'd dart outside quickly and DH would get me to stand in the road in the available space whilst he shot off to get the car.....I remember telling someone on the phone I was 'lying in a parking space', lol.....not literally of course

sirmosh

The worst thing I'm finding is we quite often avoid using the car since we know that if we lose our space we won't get another one. There are a couple of places to put the car but you have to move it by 8am which means even on a day off you need to be up and dressed to walk down the road and move your car before 8am.

I'm just glad I don't have kids yet since when everyone rushes off for the school run they all lose their spaces. Probably wouldn't be so bad but there is only one side of the road available for parking and a lot of businesses on surrounding streets with no parking have permits to come down and park there.

poorlittlefish

At my previous house I had my own driveway and the car would be parked right up to my living room window, but it still got stolen. On a separate occasion we disturbed kids trying to pull off decorative wheel nuts from my husband's car - again, on our own driveway.

The house where I've been staying the past six months has no off-street parking and, like the OP, there is a green and public footpath between the house and the road. Despite the street being in the same town and only a couple of minutes' drive away from my old house, my insurance premium actually went down when I moved here and there's not been any trouble whatsoever.

The moral of my story is that off-street parking doesn't necessarily mean your car is any safer. It depends more on the street or area itself so drive/walk past at various times and days to see what's going on.

oskisnana

We have a beautiful 4 bed house in a lovely village that we have lived in for 6 years now.
We could only afford it because it had no parking therefore it was priced cheaper due to the lack of parking.
We have a car park (free) just a few seconds from the house and load outside our house right next to the front door which is far nearer than a lot of my friends who have drives!
We can also park outside after 6pm and before 9am in the morning on single yellows.
Our friends and family never have problems parking when visiting- I suppose it depends where you are - we are in a large village with schools in the area.
For us it has never been a problem.
Its very frustrating to see that people who may potentially buy if we ever decided to sell would just dismiss a house without parking! :eek:
As I say for us this is and never has been a problem at all and we got a fabulous family home for a really good price as it was priced accordingly.
Our village gets busy saturday mornings and school times then its dead as a dodo! most of the time but we never have a problem parking even on those busy times.

Mickygg

OP as you can read a lot of people wouldn't buy without a space, me included. My last place had one tight space, then any more a free for all. I left 6 months ago and the parking started to become a problem as kids become adults and they add to the car fleet!I had an argument with a neighbour and was a constant problem. It was stressful and I won't do it ever again. No1 priority on new place was 2 off road parking spaces. As more and more cars hit our roads the problem with parking will only get worse.
Of course this will affect buyers not having a parking space, but then it's only one factor of hundreds people consider when buying.
I hope you listen to everyone and don't do what people do on here, ask the question, don't seriously consider the negative answers and buy the place anyway.......
Good luck!

toddler9

We bought our first house last year- sounds like exactly the same situation, we have a path and a green in front of our house. There is a communal car park just across the green, but all of our neighbours have drive ways (they drive across the green to reach) so finding a space is never hard. We live in a very quiet area.
Sometimes when you have got heavy bags or furniture from Ikea thats when parking away from your house is a problem- we drive up onto the green unload the car and then park it again. We got the house very cheap so it's not really an issue (also because we are a young couple with no kids) but our next house will be a family house so we will need a driveway. So re-sale wise you may just find that another young couple will not be that bothered.

moneyistooshorttomention

toddler9 wrote: »

There is a communal car park just across the green, but all of our neighbours have drive ways (they drive across the green to reach)
............ we drive up onto the green unload the car and then park.

Am I interpreting this rightly? To me - it is reading that people are driving their cars across green grass, rather than along the road.

I must have got that wrong - greens are grass and don't get driven on or parked on at all EVER obviously.

Perhaps you could clarify that I have misinterpreted and people arent really driving on the grass and mucking it up and making people wary of using it as a green please?