Need some help, steep driveway adjustment

[Mike Garrett RAA]

Ok, I will bet some of you have some experience with this.

An REO appraisal, house is 3 years old. Nice location, half acre lot, house is nice.

Problem.....Driveway is 175 feet long and 45 degree slope. I could not get up it with my front wheel drive. Neighbor reports the owner had a 4x Toyota and rolled it trying to get down the drive in the winter.

They let the house go into foreclosure when they couldn't sell it. The neighbor thought they moved to California but had filed a law suit against both the builder and the city for permitting the driveway.

I see no economical way to cure the functional obsolescence. No place to put another driveway. Only solution I can come up with is building two parking spaces at street level and adding concrete steps up to the house. It is not safe walking the drive in the winter with any snow and ice. Walking up 175 steps to get to the house is going to really limit the market, in fact, it might just render the whole thing about worthless.

Anyone got any experience with this?

 

[Lawrence R.]

Yikes

We don't get stuff like that here in the sunny south. No way to cure by bringing in some dirt, and lessening the grade somehow? Or, actually taking some out somehow? That is a good one. Good luck way out of my area of experience. And probably always will be. We do have plenty of 4x4 trucks here though!!

 

[Chris Harrison]

Yep, owner in Park City installed a heated drive. Cost to cure was almost $40,000, but the home as $3,000,000+ so no big deal.

 

[Joyce Potts]

Based solely on my experience in owning a log home in W NC accessed by a very steep driveway, it definitely impacted the marketability.

As to how much, I'm not really sure, but I think you make a smart call in at least raising the issue in your appraisal.

 

[Blue1]

Hey Mike...Is it a gravel/dirt drive-way? If so..Then possibly paving with chip/seal or asphalt might give you what you need for the adjustment. Here that would probably cost about $10,000 to $20,000 for 175 feet but probably only 8 feet wide....

 

[Nate2]

During one of our beautiful New England Winters, I once watched a FedEx truck try to climb a very similar driveway ( I was appraising the house next door) It was around 12noon and it had just stopped snowing (about 6" of fresh snow on the ground with a nice base)......Im walking towards the street to get a street photo when the truck comes barreling down the road to try to make it up this driveway (which had a 180 degree turn halfway up)....needless to say....he made it to the curve and kept going straight. He must have been 150' off the driveway when the snow piled up enough to stop him. He was fine, but this was a million dollar neighborhood.....they must have really done a number on the homeowners lawn trying to get that truck back on the driveway!

About a year later I had the pleasure of appraising the 'house with the driveway' as the neighbors refer to it, which was recently purchased by an obviously wealthy individual. The new owner tore up the driveway and installed heating elements from the street to the garage (well over 250 feet).....now the snow does not stick....the new owner told me the driveway actually stays DRY during a storm if it is 'turned on'!


That certainly is not an economical solution, but it is a solution, just thought I would share my story! Does it meet the street @ 45 degrees?

These driveways are the exact reason I drive a Subaru Outback! I ALWAYS show up, no matter how hard it is snowing!

 

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

My sister wrecked her 'Gator on a driveway like this. I think she spit the hook on the assignment.

Years ago I did a house in Paradise Valley with a driveway like this. The homeowner owned a chain of brake shops in Phoenix.

I think a heated driveway may be a solution. They are fairly common in the Pagosa Springs area.

 

[Mike Garrett RAA]

Here is what I have found in the newspaper archives:

Susana Adams was so convinced the driveway of her new home on Dairy Ranch Road was dangerous that she never moved in after arriving from out of state in September 2004.
She immediately put the house back up for sale.
Forget the stunning views from its living room of Blodgett Peak to Black Forest. Forget the wraparound deck. The stone fireplace and detailing. The four bedrooms, three baths, media room and central air. Adams wanted out.
Turns out she was right. The driveway claimed its first victim last winter — a roll-over wreck. And now, the house with perhaps the steepest, sharpest-curved, most dangerous driveway in the city is vacant again and up for sale.
“Oh no,” said Doug Jones, a RE/MAX real estate agent who worked seven months to sell the house for Adams. “Oh wow. I’m really sorry to hear that.”
In a way, Jones wasn’t surprised to learn the new owner, Jason Olson, had wrecked on the driveway. Jones knew the driveway was dangerous and warned everyone who looked at the house, including Olson.
The driveway is a staggering 40 percent grade at its steepest point. That is double the maximum grade allowed by the city on hillside homes. A 60 percent grade is considered too steep to stand on and most highways don’t exceed 8 percent grade.
The driveway is the reason the house sat on the market so long, Jones said, before Olson bought it at a deep discount in April 2005. It scared people off.
Not Olson, then 26, who saw it at its worst when he toured the house after a heavy snow.
Olson owned a four-wheeldrive truck and was confident he and his new wife, Dacia, could handle the driveway.
Olson described the driveway simply as “a little tricky” — especially at the bottom where a long straightaway gives way to a sharp turn to the street.
“I’m a four-wheel enthusiast,” Olson said. “I don’t mind the driveway.”
Still, he conceded there were times it would be too dangerous to drive.
“You can’t drive on it when it has snow on it,” he said.
Unfortunately, he forgot his own advice.
In November, neighbor Kelly Kitch was standing at her bedroom window when she saw Olson and his wife, who was eight months pregnant, heading down the driveway.
“It had dusted us with snow the night before, but it hadn’t really snowed,” Kitch said. “Jason and Dacia had gotten in his truck and started down the driveway.”
Almost immediately, she could see he was in trouble.
“On the top section, he kept bumping the inside curb,” Kitch said. “He was sliding.”
Olson cleared the switchback and gingerly drove down the straightaway before reaching the final turn.
“He got to the bottom and tried to brake,” Kitch said. “But he couldn’t stop. He went straight and hit the curb on the other side. The back of his truck came up and the whole vehicle went over on its side. It landed in the street.”
Kitch’s husband, Doug, raced down the hill to help pull the Olsons from their overturned truck.
Luckily, neither Olson nor his wife was injured, although the event shook everyone up.
A few months later, the house was empty and the “For Sale” sign showed up in the yard.
Olson did not return repeated calls seeking comment.
Neighbors are left to wonder if it was the driveway or something else that caused the family to move.
News of the wreck didn’t surprise Brett Veltman, the city development review and zoning manager who had inspected the driveway and urged it be removed and redesigned.
Even now, Veltman said the city would do anything possible to smooth the permitting process if someone wanted to rebuild the driveway — a project that could cost $50,000 or more, experts say.
Jones is convinced a new driveway — or a bargain-basement price — is the only way the house will sell again.
“It would be a $400,000 house if the driveway was fixed,” Jones said.
Otherwise, it may go for half that price. And the risk of wrecking will always remain.
While the idea of a driveway wreck sounds strange to most, apparently they aren’t all that uncommon among the hill-hugging houses on Dairy Ranch Road, below the Peregrine neighborhood. Just ask Kelly Kitch.
“The previous winter, the lady on the other side of us went off her driveway,” Kitch said. “Nose first. Luckily she landed in some bushes that broke her fall.”
Tell me about your
neighborhood: 636-0193 or
bvogrin@gazette.com


We have a few heated drives here in Colorado Springs but nothing this steep! Yep, its paved...I made a run at it with my Suzuki Swift, made it about 20' before the wheels started spinning. I'm positive I can get up it with my Sidekick...but I don't want too!

 

[Tom Barclay]

Although I don't have any direct experience with this, I would think that a 45 degree slope would be impassable even with a heated drive. Half that slope would be extreme. A 6-8% grade is considered to be extreme on any major roadway. Getting rid of the snow and ice would make it easier to descend, still will not allow the normal vehicle to ascend. Think of it, it is extremely difficult to climb a 45 degree hill hand over hand with trees and branches to hold on to. Sounds more like the face of a cliff than a driveway.

 

[Caterina Platt]

I did an REO that was touted to be one of the highest houses in Albuquerque when I was about 8 months pregnant with Cammie. I got to the foot of the driveway and got squeamish about trying it. Once you get up there, coming back down in reverse is always a special treat too. Never quite sure if there's adequate turn around space up top when you can't see it.

I decided to be safe and hoof it up the hill. Waddled, huffed, puffed, and was absolutely sure there was going to be some functional involved with that drive. This was probably about 30-40 degree grade with a right angle turn about half way up. I researched all sorts of wacky entrance places in our east mountains market, but didn't have definitive data. I mentioned it strongly in the REO addenda, and stayed at the lower end of reconciliation to be safe.

I'll be damned if that thing didn't sell for quite a bit more than my value in a heartbeat. Something like 20% higher. I hate it when I'm not right. Apparently the new buyer was too taken with the views to worry about the drive? I haven't seen it repo since, but did have a call to appraise it for a refi last week. I actually breathed a sigh of relief when my quoted fee and turn time wasn't acceptable.

Yours sounds a bit more treacherous. I had no stories of rolled vehicles. How many feet up would one have to climb stairs? Are we talking several flights? Imagine that with a car full of groceries, or say, having furniture delivered.

Regardless of my experience with the 'buzzard perch' place, I still think access plays a huge part in marketability. Lower end of the value range and extended marketing times at the very least. How special is the house once you get to it?