How about a picture of the back of the house. Take it back far enough that we can see any yard you have back there. It makes sense to me (but I'm not an architect or civil engineer). You do have the French doors for egress. Also add some pictures of the interior.

I would be removing the french doors. I am extending my kitchen into the existing garage space. I posted about this here: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/kitchen-design-advice-peninsula-or-small-l-shaped-island-dsvw-vd~5424945

You can see the current hall/entry from the pictures above and here:

Maybe post an overview of the house (google earth) so we can get better idea how it fits together. An entrance off the back wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me if it looked intentional.

Here is a picture from google earth of the lot. This is an old photo where the previous tenant had a lot of junk. I have cleared out the space where the cars were.. excavated/leveled and added gravel since this picture was taken. So my lot is flat up until the fence and to the trees behind my house like I posted above. It's a significant amount of space.

Do you have a permit for that work? I can't think it's allowable to not have egress on both sides of the house

I'll have an egress on the 'back' of the house into the living room and the side in the converted garage/laundry room space. I could take the french doors down to a single door, but it seems redundant when I have a door to the side yard right around the corner.

Would you be allowed to have a driveway to the back in that green strip on the left side of your house?

tqtqtbw - I believe the city made them remove the driveway on my house and my neighbor's house. Both houses used to had driveways/garages which have been removed and converted. I could talk to the city about that possibility, but I don't have much hope for that.

I think if you added a portico or something special to highlight the new front door it would be acceptable future owners.

"Is having the front entry at the back of the house a terrible idea? I want to be able to sell this house and buy something a little bigger/nicer in the next 10 years and I don't want this to make it difficult to sell."

The entry is the least of your problems. You're on a busy street. The house is lower than the road. There's no front yard. There's no back yard. The driveway is shared. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Skil367 - Thanks. Any advice on how to make the best out of a crappy situation?

Presumably your purchase price reflected your home’s location so your only issue is whether anything you do would adversely impact the appeal and FMV of the when you sell.

That kind of shared driveway to the back isn’t uncommon as my friends had a similar layiut. Difference was that they accessed from the back where they parked and visitors accessed from the front since visitors parked on the street.

How would visitors access enter. If they park on the street that’s a pretty long and undesirable path to your door. Typically visitors do not wind around and enter from the back.

Helen - Thanks. The layout is kind of a pain, and I thought I would be able to remove the front gate/fence when I was purchasing the home (before I realized how bad the property line actually is). But I got it at a steal given the housing market where I'm from.

The problem is there is no street parking in the front of my house. It's a street with only a small bike lane. They would park in the back of my house like me and enter from there. If that's where everyone will be entering, it makes sense to make it the official 'entrance', right?

Do you know for sure what the city plans to do with this property and the road? I wouldn't sink any money into the house until you know for a fact they won't be annexing it and tearing it down.

When and if the road gets widened, will your house be far enough back to comply with setback rules? Or will the city just write you a check and bring in the bulldozers?

If your guests are parking in the rear then no reason not to shift the entrance.

Not quite the same thing but I live in Los Angeles and there are homes that are located right on Pacific Coast Highway and they essentially have turned their backs to the highway and all the focus is on the "back" which fronts on the beach. Of course people enter through the front but given your layout, I would certainly make the back inviting and essentially hide the front if that makes sense.

And when you decide to sell your future buyer is going to assess the location as overriding the quirks of not having a standard front door. I was just discussing with a friend how I really don't care that much about curb appeal because I live in the interior of the house. Of course I grew up in New York City and my neighborhood although composed of single family homes wasn't exactly a paragon of curb appeal. The homes were what they were :-)

"Any advice on how to make the best out of a crappy situation?"

Yes. Don't make it crappier by wasting gobs of money on a detached garage, a new entry and a second bathroom.

Skil367 - Wow. Your negativity really isn't welcome. :)

Definitely a ray of sunshine.

i am assuming there is some kind of entrance in the rear now so it’s just a question of cosmetics to make it look like an entrance.

A second bathroom is always a good thing. Without a layout, it’s hard to see if it would fit and of course what the cost would be since you would have to create plumbing.

Helen - Yes, a terrible glass slider into the living room. I would take that out and replace it with a single exterior door.

It would be right next to the existing bathroom. I can fit a walk in shower, a sink and toilet. Better than nothing

Thanks for all of the advice/encouragement so far! My house has a lot of work that needs to be done on it, but my dad is a contractor and does a lot of remodeling, so I feel confident that my fixer-upper will be beautiful soon enough :)

If your father is a contractor, you are well ahead of the game since labor is such a significant expense and finding good trades people is hard. Presumably your father will give you a good price. :-).

To answer your question, entrance in back is OK -- how would anyone find their way around to the front?

I understand you got a deal on the house, but consider no matter what you do to it, you are not going to change its location or how it is accessed. These things will be a turn off to many buyers when you sell, especially at an increased price as it will no longer be an inexpensive fixer-upper.

Your easement now IS the (private) road leading to your home.

You might also consider having a conversation with the neighbor with whom you share that easement to place both your (911 recognizable) street numbers at the beginning of that easement as well as on your mailbox so both visitors and/or emergency responders can find your home.

You might consider creating a oval/circular ( 0 ) driveway at the end of your easement adjacent to your home -- an angled row of parking spaces you can drive all the way around, perhaps with a single shade tree in the middle.

Hopefully the French Doors will satisfy the need (for safety reasons) for ingress/egress from that side of the house but you should make sure before as you get your permit to build your new bathroom.

Good idea to plant a green fence inside your front fence. You might still want the easier access to your mailbox by reaching over your fence rather than stopping on a busy road. Consider investing in one of the larger ones that can be opened from either front or back to make that possible.

I’m with suezbell, the driveway is now a private road, very common in some parts of the country, less so in others. Some places even let you name it ( ‘my street address is 102 Main Street, but look for the sign that says martin lane’). I would put the address sign and mailboxes at the foot of the driveway, then reorient the house.

I agree with above and go to your township/post office and see it they would classify the easement as a private road with its own name and address. Or change your address to the side street. You could put the mailboxes on the side street. Then flip the front of the house. I would think changing your address to the side street might work better for you since you also want to build a garage on the property. We live on a private road. There are 4 houses build different eras on a 1/4 mile one lane road from a farm land split up. We all have driveways off the private road. The road runs through the edges of our properties. Since it is classified as a private road we have to obey zoning of the township for our property like a township owned road. We each have to have a 100 ft frontage and the homes has to obey the township ordinances such as set backs rules, no sheds in the front yard, fencing, etc just like homes on the public road. Since there is only the 2 of you on a short road I think with just changing the address to the side street you will not have the frontage rules.

Just a few random comments:

• I agree that moving your 'front entry' to the current back is the rational thing to do with your home
• First, check to see if there is a Master Plan for the roadway and the area so you know what and where to put in your improvements. The Master/Comprehensive Plan would most likely be available online for your county/city/municipality. If not on line, then the location to check it would be online :)\
• Be careful of your budget. Look to your expenditures as funds you may not get back but will make the difference in how you live in the property. JMO.
• I like suezbell's idea of an oval or circular driveway. Two considerations: make sure you have a written easement with the neighbor so your access can't arbitrarily be cut off at any time. Check with a real estate attorney on preparing and executing such an easement. You are in a most vulnerable position right now relative to the neighbor and the access road.
• Consider using a 'green' driveway like one of these below:

Rachael: "Your negativity really isn't welcome."

I'm not being negative, I'm being realistic and trying to keep you from shooting yourself in the foot. There's no privacy. The front yard is a busy street. The back yard is a shared parking lot. You plan on moving in ten years. Despite all that, you want to do major remodeling. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't make any sense.

On the positive side, the house looks to be in pretty good shape and I'm glad to hear you didn't pay much for it. If I were you, I'd spend as little as possible - basic maintenance, a little paint, a few shrubs - and use this opportunity to save money for a better house.

There is nothing wrong about the plan to change the house entry and possibly add a detached garage. In fact, moving the main entry to the back sounds like the only sensible approach for your particular situation. While you should be careful not to overimprove your house for its neighborhood, that advice applies to all homeowners and all properties.

Some people will always object to a house backing to a busy road and that is OK. A wise real estate agent once told me that I should not assume that my objections to a property were shared by all buyers. One house I thought would be hard to sell, because of its location on a major street just a few houses from a stoplight, was bought by someone who found the location convenient and liked the easy access. Just treat the most obvious aspects of the house as a feature - easy access to main road, dead end street, and plenty of parking. Sounds like that might appeal to someone who wants to run a home business...hair dresser, music lessons, counselor, craftsman, online sales or some other choice. Anyone who might be in a profession where they get called out at odd hours or in poor weather might want a practical house in a convenient spot. I would suggest that if you build a detached garage, make it a desirable feature with extra depth, good lighting and extra access doors so it could be used as an office or workshop, not just a bare minimum garage.