Improving Main Road Property Value Through Rear Access

Hi,

I live in the Ryde area. The average 3 bed house price is around $700K. I've noticed however that houses on busy main roads sell for up to $100K less than houses in quieter streets. I suspect that it is the difficulty/safety of getting in & out of the driveway that reduces value. (The noise problem is not that hard to overcome as many do with front brick walls, double glazing etc).

I was wondering if value could be added by providing rear driveway access to these properties via an easement. See the attached file. Notice how this long property could provide access to up to 6 main road properties. I could see 2 ways to make money on this. If you owned 1 of the main road properties it would add value. If you owned the rear property you could sell rights to use the easement e.g. 6 x $30,000 (have allow for cost of building driveway too).

Would like to hear peoples thoughts.

Lee.
 

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I live in the Ryde area. The average 3 bed house price is around $700K. I've noticed however that houses on busy main roads sell for up to $100K less than houses in quieter streets. I suspect that it is the difficulty/safety of getting in & out of the driveway that reduces value. (The noise problem is not that hard to overcome as many do with front brick walls, double glazing etc).
Lee, it is not just the difficulty of vehicle access that reduces value.
It is a number of factors:
1. Noise. Sydney never sleeps as they say. Victoria road always has traffic on it at any time of the day or night. Double glazing windows is fine IF you want to keep yourself shut inside all the time. What if you want to open these double glazed windows for some fresh air......which leads to the next factor
2. Car & truck exhaust fumes....which aside from being smelly and affecting some folk with respitory problems also contains....
3. Soot that covers the building / your car / windows & your stuff inside the house if you leave the windows open.
4. Security. On a main road like Victoria Rd you get all sorts of people at all hours of the night walking past. Putting up front brick walls to stop noise only makes it easier for these people to hide behind.
5. Visitors who drive over to see you and need to park their car - on a main road or in a bus / clearance lane or have parking limits or need to pay for parking.
Overall, you get what you pay for :p

I was wondering if value could be added by providing rear driveway access to these properties via an easement.
Possibly, but it would be very minor in my opinion.
 
Hi,

See the attached file. Notice how this long property could provide access to up to 6 main road properties.
Lee.

The property you highlighted looks quite narrow as it is, not sure how happy he would be to reduce it even further.

You might have better luck getting the row of houses to sacrifice a bit of their own backyard and leave number 59 out of the equation (unless he is keen to do it).

There is a similar set-up in a property I recently purchased, the row of houses have a right of passageway in their backyards, which allows everyone 'rear-lane' access to their homes.
 
Thanks people. Some really good info here.

This issue of parking for visitors is an interesting one. Over at North Ryde they are putting 1 hour parking signs up everywhere. This makes it very difficult for friends to visit if you don't have off-street parking. I wonder if that devalues the properties.

It's an interesting concept too of each block sacrificing some of their back yard. If they all contribute to building the driveway then that might be more efficient.

Lee.
 
Lee, it is not just the difficulty of vehicle access that reduces value.
It is a number of factors:
1. Noise. Sydney never sleeps as they say. Victoria road always has traffic on it at any time of the day or night. Double glazing windows is fine IF you want to keep yourself shut inside all the time. What if you want to open these double glazed windows for some fresh air......which leads to the next factor
2. Car & truck exhaust fumes....which aside from being smelly and affecting some folk with respitory problems also contains....
3. Soot that covers the building / your car / windows & your stuff inside the house if you leave the windows open.
4. Security. On a main road like Victoria Rd you get all sorts of people at all hours of the night walking past. Putting up front brick walls to stop noise only makes it easier for these people to hide behind.
5. Visitors who drive over to see you and need to park their car - on a main road or in a bus / clearance lane or have parking limits or need to pay for parking.
Overall, you get what you pay for :p

Possibly, but it would be very minor in my opinion.

Not to mention road widening and the possibility of losing your whole front yard to an 8ft wall. Not pretty.

My number 1 Rule for Property Investing: No Main Roads.

Regards JO
 
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