[quote author="ajw522"]
[quote author="graceomalley"]AJ,
I don't have much kind word to say because I rarely sugar coat anything,
You bought a glorified detached condo but paid a conventional lot price.
A brand new home is always attractive. Once it is used it will be hard to compete in resale among conventional homes. You will have to lower your price to attract the buyer for lacking the new home smell. This detached condo will always be priced below the conventional lot house in the resale market such as Portisol.
I will list the top 20 out of 101 reasons why I do not like entry off the alley.
1. Children get hit by cars when coming out from a blind spot. Injury can occur at any speed when cars pulling in to the motor court.
2. Bad feng shui to have entry door facing the sewer line buried below the motor court.
3. Directly across from the neighbor's front door is a feng shui taboo.
4. Neighbors home is smacked 26' from your front. Frontal privacy issues. Problem solved if you live across from IHO and your lot will be a premium lot.
5. 2-1/2 steps from the asphalt to the front door.
6. Crossing over a water gutter along your front door and garage is bad. Drainage of the entire motor court drain across your entry and garage. You have no sidewalk but have to leap over water.
7. You have to walk on motor court to get to your front door. You can't avoid stepping in grease and leaked motor oil.
8. Guests park along the street have to walk up a mud drainage stained asphalt path to find your front door.
9.Utility line below motor court is an easement. During any excavation for repair you will not be able to walk up to your front door and access your garage.
10. Due to tight dimension your neighbors will accidentally back the car into your front door.
11. Constantly dealing with headlights and red taillight glare to your front of your house.
12. Neighbors trash cans will be in front of your front door during trash day.
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13. Noise from your neighbors opening the garage and noise from running the cars. Toxic emission pointing to your front door is very bad feng shui.
14. motor court gradient is 1% therefore water ponding will occur after sprinkler irrigation or rain. Mud stain is very unsightly outside your front door.
15.Asphalt driveway surface requires slurry coat every 18 months so be prepared to deal with black tar, smell and tracking it into your home.
16. Neighbor's car wash and water draining across your front door. Water reflected on the car will leave spots on your window.
17. Shoes will get piled up at the door stoop and be ready to accept the eye sore.
18. Seeing your neighbors mess in their garage when they open their garage or leaving it open for cross ventilation or kids playing.
19. Neighbors cars must swerve close to your front door in order to make the turning radius to get into their garage. Traffic engineer calculated 18 trips per day per home and that is 26,280 trips per year for a 4 pack. Chinese driving skill in conjunction with this type of statistic an accident will be likely. For a six pack there will be 40,000 car trips per yr and imagine your kids playing there. All it takes is just one accident out of of the 40,000 trips that will change your life forever.
19. Landscape maintenance must use their blower and all the dust on the motor court will end up on your window screen and leaved drop of dirt on your windows constantly.
20. The short front door path in feng shui symbolizes short career, short future and the lack of opportunities.
I have 81 more reasons but I will stop here.
So let me hear the good reasons or trade offs why the front door is so great 2.5 steps off the alley other than BagOChipO a detached condo to sell for more money.
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OK, here goes; I'm gonna respond to some of your downsides.
#1: Come on! Your motorcourt is only 3 homes deep. First off, I wouldn't allow a child who can't be seen by a car outside ALONE with no supervision in the first place. Second, the only people that are going to be driving on the motorcourt are your neighbors, so not many cars will drive by. Yes, there still is a chance that someone will get hurt, but haven't you seen teenagers skateboarding in front of their houses. They either do it on their driveway (Montecito has one) or on the STREET.
I got hit once coming out from a blind spot behind a fat column at Northpark Albertsons. Bollards were installed later. Can you control little kids running out the front door?
#2 and for the rest of the reasons pertaining to Feng Shui: You must be a huge Feng Shui believer. I don't really care about feng shui. When the time comes to sell, I may lose some buyers because of bad feng shui, but still, I'm OK will it.
You don't lose some buyers. You lose 60% of the buyers and all FCBs
#3: Your front door is NOT right across from the home on the other side. It's a bit to the side. Go look at some of the Phase 1 and 2 homes, and you will see. Yah, the doors are pretty close, but again, I don't care about Feng Shui.
It is still 60% of the buyers.
#4: Yes, I don't particularly like the homes being so close together, but I have my reasons for buying (both in the physical home and personal reasons; see below)
#5 We both agreed
#6. It's the same thing when entering a home on a street. You have to get on the sidewalk somehow, and in order to do that, you have to go in front of the water gutter.
You walk on the sidewalk and for a conventional home the back of walk is the path leading to your front door stoop. You do not have to cross the curb and gutter. Calpac's detached condos the front doors are via a paseo
#7: True. But you can't park on the motorcourt, so I doubt a lot of leaked motor oil will be on the motorcourt. Most of this will be on the drive way. And, I don't wear my shoes in the home (I take them off before I enter, or for my guests, they leave them directly inside, not ouside) so it won't be a problem for me.
My previous car leaked oil not even in a park position. My current car leaks condensation in any position. This is why the motorcourt is asphalt so to hide oil stains.
#8: Yes, I don't like the fact that guests have to park on the street and walk up to motorcourt, but it is what it is. *sigh*
I totally agree and certainly an unimpressive way to welcome your guests.
#10: Your neighbor couldn't hit you front door. Your front door is set back a little where a car can't go. Plus, your driveway to directly across from the home across you's driveway. When backing out, if you must, you can go a little bit into their driveway. And if the person happened to hit the house, they would hit your stucco. Which probably does help your case (like CK said), but I'm OK with it. <!-- s
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Good luck with this theory for your Asian neighbors.
#11: Same as if you were on a street. Sure, the distance would be greater, but you would still experience the same lights and glare. Maybe not as bad, though.
Houses along street will not experience direct glare from lights parallel to the house unless it is at a "T" intersections from perpendicular glare
#12: Wrong. Trash cans go out to the end of the motorcourt to the main street on trash pick up days. They are not left on the motorcourt.
OK 12 trash cans at 3' on center =36'. What will happen to guest parking. I am sure no one parks along the street anymore so it is no longer a parking issue
#13: Same as if you lived on a street, but the effect could be worse on a motorcourt due to the short distance between homes.
When you live on a street the house across from you is 87' away. In an alley 26' that is 60' less.
#14: We both agreed
#15: Again, same as if you were on a street. Your home still faces an ASPHALT street, now doesn't it?
You have the option of walking on concrete sidewalk to your front door while the the street is getting a slurry coating that is well isolated from a concrete sidewalk and 6" below sidewalk grade. You have no choice here but to walk on the slurry coat to get to your front door.
#16 and 17 we both agreed
#18: Same as if you were on a street. You can still see the garage across from you!!
Less of a problem when the garage is more than 90' away vs 26'. I hate frontal garages for this reason and especially the IHO style ones.
#19 and 19.1: We both agreed
#20: I don't believe Feng Shui.
Good luck in resale when more than 60% of your buyers would rather not take a chance with bad luck. "It is better be safe than sorry" also affect the Caucasian buyers too.
I hope you plan on staying in your home for a very long time!
I bought because I liked the floorplan and because I needed to buy after renting for so long, as I have already said. Yes, I understand that there are trade-offs
Not trade-offs Rip-offs, like the motorcourt and you front door being so close to the asphalt, but, also like I said before, the home on the inside meets my needs and I have been waiting to buy for so long, and adding on top of that my personal reasons for buying, I think the good for me outweighed the bad.
I won't comment the plan because that will send you to deep buyers remorse.
And just so you know, you gave me 21 reasons. #19 was twice! <!-- s
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I like you so I gave you a bonus one.
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