Terraced or Semi Detached?

hawk30

I grew up in a Victorian terrace and heard everything going on next door. The neighbours also had a right of way over our garden (not sure if 'most' terraces have this though). Currently live in a 1970s semi and rarely hear anything.

Farside

hawk30 wrote: »

I grew up in a Victorian terrace and heard everything going on next door. The neighbours also had a right of way over our garden (not sure if 'most' terraces have this though). Currently live in a 1970s semi and rarely hear anything.

I've not found one in my area that doesn't have one

verulamium

I live in a Victorian mid-terrace. Whoever said the walls are thicker in Victorian houses as an advantage clearly hasn't lived in other houses. I can hear our neighbours whenever they walk up the stairs. Fortunately they are lovely people and goes to sleep at 9pm, so not much an issue for us. But our previous new build flat were much better sound proof, despite the 'thin' walls.

Still I love it here, but yes, if I had more money I would have gone for a detached or at least a semi detached.

I also don't understand the comment about people having right of way access through gardens. We looked at 30 Victorian terraces properties this year and none had such right of way access.

Errata

Farside wrote: »

yes they do

OK, I'm sure Cherie Blair is permanently royally hacked off with her neighbours tramping through the garden of her terraced house in London. Can't be that bad though, she bought another terraced with her son.

Farside

verulamium wrote: »

I live in a Victorian mid-terrace. Whoever said the walls are thicker in Victorian houses as an advantage clearly hasn't lived in other houses. I can hear our neighbours whenever they walk up the stairs. Fortunately they are lovely people and goes to sleep at 9pm, so not much an issue for us. But our previous new build flat were much better sound proof, despite the 'thin' walls.

Still I love it here, but yes, if I had more money I would have gone for a detached or at least a semi detached.

I also don't understand the comment about people having right of way access through gardens. We looked at 30 Victorian terraces properties this year and none had such right of way access.

Check with the EA's, i have checked more then 150 terraced in 2 years of looking for a house to buy and all of them had one. Generally you'll see a small gate on the side of your fence/wall in the back garden. In the end i gave up and saved more money to get a semi

Farside

Errata wrote: »

OK, I'm sure Cherie Blair is permanently royally hacked off with her neighbours tramping through the garden of her terraced house in London. Can't be that bad though, she bought another terraced with her son.

Each to their own lol

sulphate

Not all terraces are the same. I grew up in a Victorian terrace and there was no right of way through our garden/we didn't have to drag bins through someone else's garden because we had a passageway. Sometimes we'd hear the neighbours, not often.

Now we live at an end of terrace, also Victorian, again hardly hear our neighbours *touch wood*. There is right of way through the back garden but no one has used it since we moved in in July, and there is a bush on the other side of the gate in our neighbour's garden so I doubt anyone plans to do so either! Everyone (except us) keeps their bins out the front.

I sometimes wonder if we should have bought a terrace instead as with two outside walls, this house is harder to heat plus we can't put the furniture too close to the outside walls in the bedroom cos of condensation.

Sally22_2

I like our mid terrace. Previously lived in an end of terrace and a detached property.

Ours was only built 11/12 years ago. There are three houses in the block, so both sides of ours are end of terraces. We have access to the back so can keep our bins out the back.
The only noise we hear is one of our neighbours have young children and they run up the stairs which must be next to our living room as we hear this on the odd occassion but no later than 8pm and its only a minute at most.
Best bit is we have two designated parking spaces right outside, its a lovely quiet area (the rest of our estate is detached 600k+ properties) and our heating bills seem to be quite cheap so far!

Eventually our aim is to move to a detached property, ideally one in our estate as its just a lovely place to live! But that will be maybe 10 years time!

verulamium

Farside wrote: »

Check with the EA's, i have checked more then 150 terraced in 2 years of looking for a house to buy and all of them had one. Generally you'll see a small gate on the side of your fence/wall in the back garden. In the end i gave up and saved more money to get a semi

We are aware that some properties has right of way access through the back garden, so we always check. But in each of the 20+ properties we viewed, none has right of way access. Not only do we ask, we also physically made sure that there are no dodgy gates around the back garden.

These were in the Southwark part of South London. Things may be different else where, but I can assure you right of way access down this side isn't as common as you believe, at least not down here.

cattie

As somebody who has lived alone for a few years now, I've favoured terraced houses over semi's. Have heard a few horror stories regarding break ins in semis & end of terraces to ever want to own one. My sister has a semi in a very good area & has suffered 3 break ins, the last while she was upstairs in bed.