Are Your Neighbors Sabotaging Your Home Sale?
2026
Are the neighbors sabotaging your home sale? It can happen.
Imagine that you’ve spent time and money improving your home’s curb appeal, and it looks great. But when you step across the street to look at your home, all you can see are the beat-up cars in the neighbor’s driveway, not to mention the overgrown lawn, the barking dogs, and the complete lack of curb appeal.
The fact is, your neighbor’s unsightly property can hurt your own house’s curb appeal, no matter how much you’ve done to improve it. But you have options.
1. Have a good relationship with your neighbors. Even if you don’t have a plan to sell now, it’s always helpful to have a friendly relationship with the neighbors. You never know when you’ll need them. For example, aside from possible curb appeal issues, it’s not uncommon for issues to come up during a sale, such as issues with easements or retaining walls. Establishing a strong relationship with your neighbor from the beginning will help ensure their cooperation when you need them during the home sale.
2. Keep them up to date. If you plan to sell in the near future, give the neighbors a heads-up in advance. When you need assistance from a neighbor for whatever reason, it will be easier to approach them if you’ve given them notice.
3. Offer to pay for improvements. It will be difficult to ask your neighbors to reseed their lawn, pull their weeds, change their fence or paint their door to help your sale—especially if you expect them to pay for it. If you need your neighbor to do some curb appeal work to help your sale, the money should come out of your pocket. That said, you can’t force the neighbor to use your landscaper, painter or contractor, even if you’re paying for it. It’s their home, not yours, and you need to tread lightly. Though many neighbors will appreciate the offer to spruce up their home on your dime, others may be hesitant. Bullying them to work on your timeframe or with your rules won’t help.
