Downsides of buying a halfplex?

[Aloros]

Are there any? If so, what are they? I found a lovely halfplex in a wonderful neighborhood, and honestly, single-family homes in this neighborhood are a little out of budget. Even houses that look modest on the outside boast granite countertops and waterfalls on the inside! The halfplex is on the corner of a nice, quiet street, and is close to work, parks, schools, etc. It has its own backyard/front yard and is quite large.

Googling "halfplex" and "disadvantages" only brings up housing listings!

 

[KimberlyH]

Value/resale options, different lifestyles and standards of living sum up the three major potential disadvantages of purchasing a duplex I can think of. The large common wall between the two homes can be a landmine; for example, if your neighbor is an up-all-night person, and you''re about peace and quiet after 8 there could be problems. If you want to paint your house, do they have to paint their half as well? And who chooses the colors? Do your yards match? Is their shared property? If so who takes care of it?

 

[butterfly 17]

I lived in a duplex for 4 years before I sold it. In Staten Island, many homes are duplexes as house prices are fairly high and most people can''t afford to buy a detached right away. In the better neighborhoods they start around $450K to $700K and even more depending on the size, lot, upgrades, etc., so buying one seems like a great option for a new home owner.

It''s very similar to a townhouse, except that only two houses are attached, so you have the advantage of having a side and backyard of your own. I think it might even be better than a townhouse as most townhomes here in SI don''t have a backyard and at least you have a side yard to your house, unless of course you have a corner townhouse.

You don''t share a yard, your duplex comes with a mapped plot and it''s up to you if you want to put up a fence, which my house had. Everything to your side, front and back is yours, everything on your neighbors side is theirs.

The only thing you might share an expense in is if you plan to put up a fence between the two properties if nothing is there, but it would make sense to split the cost since both of you will get used out of the fence.

I never shared anything with my neighbors. In fact, our house had landscaping and theirs did not. We paid for our lawn services seperately, etc.

We never had to deal with painting the front of our houses as it was brick front, but since your house is yours, you can basically do whatever you want with it including painting it pink as long as it is on your side only.

There are usually no HOA fees either as most duplexes are not in a community.

I have to say that I never had any problems with hearing my neighbors in their house and never really thought about it much when we moved into our house as we were just so happy to move into a house finally. My neighbors on my block were all very nice though and not noisy or boisterous.

 

[crown1]

i did live in one for a short time when i was first married. it was very nice and entirely brick with a large yard in a very nice location. the common wall was a problem as noise filtered thru. it was two story with a basement and the stairs were side by side with the common wall. not only could we heard voices some times but we heard each time the neighbors went up and down the stairs.

i do think that you could check out the sound before you committed to it. we were young and did not even consider the sound. we did not own it. it was leased and we simply found someone the owner approved to assume the lease and we purchased a home. hth.

 

[littlelysser]

I''m living in a duplex right now...aka a side-by-side...

We like living in the duplex. Our house is in a great neighborhood, and it is our first home. We could not have afforded a stand alone home in our neighborhood...Our duplex was built in the ''50s, so it is super sound and we never hear our neighbors through the common wall. We have two dogs, however, and we worry when the bark and et all riled up...and we have to be aware that we shouldn''t have the tv too loud...etc...I don''t know if they can hear us, but it stinks that we have to consider it. If that makes sense.

There are some downsides. The neighbors we had when we first moved in were wonderful. Our new neighbors...not so much. We don''t see them on an every day basis...but it kind of stinks. Also, we haven''t had any major problems, knock on wood, but we''ll have to deal with them should our duplex require a new roof or something like that.

But we really like our house...and although the next one will be a stand alone, we are pretty happy here too.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

I think it depends on where you live. In our market townhomes/condos do take much longer to sell. People here like single family homes. Plus I think often times they have more of an apartment feel than a home. Also I would want to know how outside maintance happens (like if the home needs to be repainted for example).

 

[Maisie]

My house is joined to another. Our neighbours are awful! They are extremely noisy, they are messy (lots of mess out the front of their house - old furniture etc) and they always park in my parking space!!

If I didn''t love my house so much I would move.

I think cases like mine are in the minority though. I am sure most shared wall houses are fine.

 

[Aloros]

Thank you so much for your help!

I''m living in one side of a duplex right now, and it feels like a regular ''ole house. I never hear or see my neighbors, but I know experiences can differ. Both sides of the duplex I was looking at are for sale, so I thought if we went to look at it, we could see if we could get into the other side at the same time and test the sound insulation. I''m very tempted to consider this place seriously, since it really does look like a single-family home until you walk around the corner and see another garage.

And similar to butterfly 17''s experience, the single-family homes are just so expensive here! Even the duplexes are expensive, though less so.

Thank you again!

 

[gailrmv]

My main concern would be the noise - I had loud "wall neighbors" in apartments previously and that turned me off to a townhouse when I was ready to purchase. Luckily real estate is pretty reasonable where I live. I;d also want to get the scoop on exterior maintenance - how is it decided on, etc? before buying.

 

[Steel]

I just sold a semi-detatched house. Sold being the operative word. [Semi detatched means 1 house with 2 floors divided in the middle wth each person owning the entire left or right hand side, ours had seperate gardens with fences between them and separate parking out the front of the house seperated from the next neighbours parking by lawn]

IMO:

Benefits = None
Concerns = Horrid neighbours, lack of privacy, shared everything, NOISE, idiot neighbours parking everywhere, including IN our private segregated driveway, we kept an immaculate garden and always very neatly painted our wooden fences so the dye wouldn’t bleed onto the neighbours side, they painted once and threw paint everywhere - even on our plants up to 2 ft from the fence!

they broke the fence, went into our garden without permission frequently to retrieve their crap they ''lost'' over the fence, had very loud parties, banged every door in the house with the precision of an OCD professional, fire risk- if their house burns yours will def get smoke damage and possibly burn as well, if theirs burns and yours doesn’t they may choose not to rebuild and you are left trying to sell a semi with no twin just a charred remains, joined neighbour could possibly file for change of use in future to shop or brothel (for worst case example) this could REALLY affect your sale price, as mentioned already your joined neighbour could fail to do basic repairs and keep the house like a kip (cars rusting, caravans/boats all year round, even basic cleaning/repairs such as guttering can be a huge problem if they fail to do it and it affects your side of the house.

Sorry - I really could go on forever. If you have money buy detached. 0.02

In case you can''t guess I this type of living wasn''t for me. I am now renting while getting planning permission on almost 6 acres in the country. Yes 6 acres, no I don''t think that was an excessive purchase, but I am damned sure I''m not gonna have neighbours for a while! Don''t want to see ''em, smell ''em or hear ''em.

 

[Phoenix]

I am not sure what a "duplex" or "halfplex" is but it sounds to me like a semi-detached house.

Here in S'pore, the majority of people live in "HDB estate" (meaning government-subsidised housing,, which is one way of describing it) and the rest live in private condos and private houses. Semi-D (one common wall) or terrace (both walls are shared with your neighbours) constitute most of the private houses, I would say. The detached houses (we call them "bungalows" here) are only for the extremely rich as they range from several milliions USD's upwards. Mind you though, there are some luxury condos that run in the millions of USD's range too.

We live in a semi-detached house and consider ourselves extremely lucky to have got it when we did, before the property market started to go really crazy. Granted our neighbours whom we share a wall with are not the best we could ask for, as whilst the father is extremely gentile and very friendly, one of the daughters however is a bit "loopy" and we live in fear (not constant, but we do think about it) that she may come wielding a knife one of these days!! Late afternoon everyday, we can smell deep-fried food from next door, YUK!!! Having said that, that;s what we could afford at the time (and we basically put practically most of our savings in this house) and esp. now when bungalows in our neighbourhood start from USD5m (not kidding!!).

So if you like your neigbourhood (which was / is our main criterion), and a halfplex is what your finances allow, then what's a little inconvenience of having neighbours close to you?

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Aloros, remember also that in the Boston area condos and multi family homes always have a market presence. I think our area is very different from other areas in the country because the demand for single family homes is so high that it forces the prices up and people have to compromise and go with other options. My parents owned a duplex in Marblehead when I was a kid and had no problem selling it.

 

[Aloros]

Thank you so much for your insight! I think we''re going to wait and see if housing prices drop more. Hopefully we can nab a single-family home!