The front of 7849 will face out to the road. Tere may be bedroom or bathroom windows on the side. How large are these lots? Privacy in these types of development is alwas a challenge.

7849 is almost 0.3 acre and the 1632 is about 9000 square foot. Yeah its likely the bedroom.

No matter what lot you buy someone will see into your yard from some side of their house. It’s better than looking out your window and seeing their house. You need a bigger lot so you can plant some large trees if you want total privacy.

A west facing backyard would be a deal breaker for me, lol. Unless you have a boatload of evergreen trees back there.

I'm in Texas, so the heat of a western backyard is something I'll never willingly endure again! :-D

A west facing backyard would be a deal breaker to me anywhere in the US except maybe Alaska.

I'm assuming this is a tract house development and you can't design a custom house, but only pick from their selections?

Right its the layout of the developer... so i would be choosing the layout.

Thanks a lot all of you for all the wonderful feedback. Denise, Could you suggest any landscaping solutions we can do right away during construction ? Moreover our side outdoor option will be fenced by iron... are there any challenges with this kind of fence. I am a first time home buyer thats why all the questions. Why corner lots are desirables for future buyer? Is just because of the size of the lot or there are other positives with corner lots?

We would never buy a front facing east house because of all the sun there would be on our west facing patio and deck in the afternoons. I like the corner lot with only a house on one side of you. Also planting trees are great for privacy

Having a corner lot means you don't have neighbors on both sides, allowing for more privacy. An iron fence is classic and can be very pretty. Can you plant on the HOA side of the fence? Or does the HOA have restrictions on that? I'm not a landscaper, but I will do some research and send over some inspiration images. Where are you located, as that will determine the type of plants and trees which will do well in a particular climate?

We have a corner lot and it's great because we only have a neighbor on one side.

However our lot faces north and our backyard faces south. I would NEVER have a backyard facing west. It will be unusable most of the afternoon all summer long. And if you have your living room and kitchen facing the rear, it will make those rooms uncomfortable too.

I would rather have a south facing rear yard with neighbors on both sides!

The lot and house to the rear of your potential lot will likely be closer to its side yard lot line (your back yard) than if the two lots had their rear property lines abutting. That's because side yard setbacks tend to be much less than front and rear yard setbacks.

If you want to maximize the distance between two adjacent houses, you will want to look at lots where back yards abut one another, such as where "owins mill" and "painted extra white" are shown.

Corner lots have advantages and disadvantages. An advantage is more internal natural light from the side where no other houses are located. This assumes the developer adds extra windows on that side. The disadvantage is reduction of privacy and added noise from cars and passer-bys.

Good luck!

Are you planning a pool? If you are worried about privacy, rethink the lot.

Having my backyard face somebody's front yard would be a dealbreaker for me.

Is the neighboring house built yet?

I have a wear facing front porch and it’s only too hot about 3 months a year in the late afternoon. The other nine months a year we gat fantastic sunsets. You can always put up shade structures and plant shade trees if the backyard faces west. We have a row of Leland cypress and a large maple tree on the west side of the house, so we get both privacy and shade. I am in MD, so don’t have quite the heat issues as the southern states.

Hi all. Thanks for all the replies. This is in Texas. Yeah it can get pretty hot here in summer. The house behind my lot is not built yet. My backyard would be about 35 feet from the patio. I am not planning any pool in backyard. One important info is that in front of my house is a kids park. Which is also one of the reasons I am considering it. Any comment on challenges in resale in the future ?

A kids park would also be a negative.

And in TX I absolutely would NOT pick a house with my backyard facing west. It will be unusable every afternoon for almost 6 months of the year at least.

Vishal, if it were me, and I had small kids, I'd love a park so close by. I'd also try to get as many windows on that South Wall as possible, especially going into the kitchen or great room. You can always put up an awning or sun sail to screen out afternoon light. You might try a new post tagging landscape to ask about fast growing privacy-type trees in TX to get ideas

I’m not sure what your zoning will allow, but can you design a long narrow house, possibly a really wide U, with the “back yard” on the north or south side? On the north, it would still be on someone’s sideyard fence, and on the south it would be On the street so you would have a fence. With the park, is it a large park or more of a ”tot lot”?, across the street, a large yard of your own might not be so important.

Both the kids park right across and a corner lot would be a deal breaker. It would be nice to walk to a park, however consider the extra noise and traffic. Ideal would be a quiet private lot and you walk a few houses down to the park.

And west facing backyard would be a definite no in TX.

If they had been facing the right direction, my husband and I would have purchased one of the lots in our subdivision that backed up to the park, *not* across the street from it.

Two reasons:

(1) Small and/or developmentally delayed children would be *constantly* tempted to dash out the front door, to get to the park (our park is near a major subdivision thoroughfare, as well as adjacent to the neighborhood pool).

(2) None of the floor plans offered by our builder were arranged in such a way that I could watch the kids playing out front, from the main parts of the house.

I will say that, surprisingly, the house directly across the street from our park took a long time to sell. There may have been other factors involved, but apparently, being close to a neighborhood park isn't as desirable as I thought it was, lol.

Admittedly, though, even if I took a little hit in resale, I would still love to be backed up to a park (as long as there also wasn't a pool), so I could install a gate back there, and let the kids go nuts at the park every day. :-D

Are there any lots with the backyard facing either South or East? I really like our east-facing backyard, because the house shades it in the afternoon, allowing for children and plants to flourish.

A few thoughts on the corner lot (I promise I'm almost done talking lol).... How much do you like people and animals? It takes a great lover of people -- especially children -- to happily have a corner lot in a smaller-parcel subdivision. Kiddos in particular love to cut the corner on their way to school.

I have also found that any time my dogs have had intestinal upset, it's *always* in front of the corner house, to maximize my embarrassment. I'm that crazy neighbor who, once my dog has made a mess and I get him home, I will return to your sidewalk with a scrub brush and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and scrub the concrete until the mess is completely cleaned up. I even freakin' blend the edges (or scrub the entire square), so you can't tell the newly-cleaned spot from the old concrete. I may be the only individual in my county (who is also married to the only other individual in my county) who would do this. Most of your neighbors won't. I feel so bad for the corner house, that on walks, I even pick up *other people's* dogs' droppings. And I have never even met that neighbor. :-/

Anyway, things to think about. :-D

Your neighbor needs one of these!

We put one (in black) on either side of our driveway at our previous home. It never failed that people let their dogs go to the bathroom in our shrubbery, and then the dog kicked up all of our pine straw onto the sidewalk. Once we put the signs out, that practice stopped!!!

I don't understand people that do not pick up their dogs waste. Where we are renting, it is suppose to be mandatory! DH and I pick up our dogs waste daily. On one walk, my dog went 6 times (that was when I was putting pumpkin in her diet) and I had to pick up each dump. LOL Anyway, we plan to place another sign on the front corner of our new home build.

Vishal J - We are building on a corner lot in an established neighborhood. It's the last remaining lot in a neighborhood developed in the early 1930's. Our backyard is just 20' from the neighbors side property line. Their house is probably another 20 ft. away.

Our great room looks right into the side of the neighbors house. We do have a large screened porch off the back that will help with privacy (the 20' is between the back edge of our screened porch and the property line.) It's not ideal, but it will work with a nice hedge of arborvitae. We plan to make a courtyard out of our little space.

To compensate, we have a very large yard between our house and a side neighbors property line. And we have about 35' of yard between our house on the side street side. Our garage sits off about 25' from that street. Our kitchen looks out that way, as well. My kitchen sink windows will have views of the entire corner. I love that! The front yard is wide on one end, but narrows on the other because of the cul-de-sac. We will have an L shaped front porch that looks out over that front corner. Our breakfast room looks out to that porch and yard corner, as well.

We are excited to be moving back into the neighborhood that my husband grew up in, and are willing to make compromises to do so. Good luck to you!

House on lot

Forgot to mention that the back of the house is South, SW, and West facing. The screened porch and arborvitae will help with the sun coming into the greatroom. We should receive just the right amount of light, and the porch helps with the heat. We have the front porch for times when the back porch gets too much.