Eyesore neighbours damage your house price

Overgrown gardens and garish curtains next door can knock £10,000 off home value, study says

HOMEOWNERS who sneer at their neighbours’ hideous curtains or their tacky garden gnomes may feel vindicated as a display of bad taste could knock thousands of pounds off the val- ue of their own house, according to a report.

It found that properties up for sale near homes with ugly fixtures and furnishings are worth an average of £10,000 less as a result of potential buyers being put off.

Having a good neighbour could add up to £37,000 to the value of the average house in Britain, which was worth £211,230 in May, the study by Prestige Home Insurance found.

The vast majority (92 per cent) of UK estate agents said having a bad neighbour can have a serious negative impact on the value of the houses around them.

Neighbours who are noisy, unfriendly or have an untidy or weed-filled garden, spark the most complaints. Factors such as an overgrown front garden, poor upkeep and items left on the lawn outside can bring down the value of the house next door by 8.2 per cent, or £17,321 on the price of an average house, estate agents calculated.

Other sights that can hinder neighbouring sellers’ chances are unsightly external buildings in garish colours, and fixtures such as stone cladding or faux Tudor-style beams, and visible ugly furnishings such as curtains, garden gnomes or water features. Such eyesores can reduce a neighbouring home’s average value by 4.8 per cent.

Botched DIY jobs and sprawling extensions can also shrink the value of adjoining properties, with estate agents warning they can take around £14,000 off the value.

In London, where the cost of property is much higher, the cost of bad neighbours is estimated to be more than twice as much, at £83,000.

The study found that people who live in London complain the most about their neighbours, with 18 per cent saying they want to move to get away from them. This is followed by 16 per cent in the West Midlands, and 14 per cent in Yorkshire and Humber.

Robert Green, director at John D Wood & Co, an estate agent, said: “‘Who are the neighbours?’ is one of the of the questions we are always asked when showing a property. If people discover they are buying a home next to an extrovert who may well make a spectacle of their own property, it can put some people off.”