My offer was accepted, but there are loud dogs in the house behind my house. When I enter the house they start to bark for about 5 minutes.
I don’t know if this would be a turn off to prospective tenants.
Would you back out of the offer? I’ve read about those anti-barking devices but there’s already a 6 foot fence around the house so I don’t know if that would work.
I tend not to avoid buying a place based on just one neighbor. They could live in their house for 5 months or 50 years. You don’t know. Now if the whole area is crap, that’s a different story.
I was going to recommend one of those anti-barking devices too.
The house may have been vacant for several months. Maybe the dogs will get used to people being there and not bark so long after awhile.
If the deal is good, I don’t think I’d let it go because of dogs.
^ Thanks Justin…
The house has been vacant almost a year now. It was an REO that became a HUD home. I was wondering myself if the dogs aren’t used to hearing any noise from that yard anymore.
I did go back to street (the street behind where my house is) where the dogs are and spoke to the people who live next door to the doghouse. They told me the dogs don’t bother them and that they don’t bark all the time.
The area is mostly okay, well kept–the only other possible problem is the registered sex offender on the other side of street.
Try getting some dog biscuits and toss a couple over the fence when you go there.
Pretty soon you will hear friendly “Feed Me!” whining instead of guard dog barking. Make a friend.
The registered sex offender? You are going to rent out the house?
As far as I know, there is no disclosure required for that. We had a registered sex offender next to a rental but we weren’t sure which of the three single men living there it was. Or maybe he wasn’t even there anymore. I sure wasn’t going to tell anyone that there was a sex offender next door when I didn’t know.
Furnishedowner
^ I’m less worried about the sex offender. The other people in the neighborhood seem to exist with him so some low income renters are probably not going to care. I’m pretty sure there’s no requirement to disclose something like to renters or even buyers–it’s public info, they can easily look it up on the web if they want to find out.
I would consider dogs that only bark for 5 minutes at complete strangers to be very well behaved dogs.
I’ve got one house with a couple of loud barkers next door and when people are looking, I tell them that the dogs will only bark for a couple of minutes before the neighbor opens her door to tell them to shut up. (which is true). And that the dogs will only bark when there is something to bark about (also true). None of the lookers have had any concern over the dogs.
The majority of people can tune out a couple of minutes of barking. It’s the big voiced recreational barkers that never shut up all night long that get people upset.
I also think that the majority of people are resigned to the fact that there is nowhere to live where there isn’t a barking dog somewhere in the area, plus possibly several loudly screaming kids. Noise comes along with people.
I think most of the time the little things you are worried about concerning your property as a disadvantage, your prospects who are coming over for 20 minutes wont hardly even notice or consider as a problem unless you bring it up…particularly about things like this.
They may notice, but it probably wont be something that will register on the deal breaker side of things…unless they are completely anal, stubborn,picky and with the impossible to please type of personality, in which case you probably dont want them as a tenant anyways.
P.