Would you buy a place with a driveway like this?

It might. Or it might drain into the flat part of our property, which would be another reason to buy it and put a stop to it.

There’s also a salmon stream right there. He has the driveway planned out so it’s outside the buffer zone, but I wonder if that might cause permitting problems for him.

So many “ifs” with this property.

Whatever you do don’t let him build some sub standard mess and then buy it and own the mess.

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Woulda Coulda Shouda - if you can buy this property without financial strain I would make the guy an offer before he invests more money into it. It sounds like an ecological SNAFU if somebody tries to develop it because of the topography. That development might affect your current property or maybe not. Perhaps if somebody buys it they will want to use your right of way for a drive. The bigger the buffer zone between you and the apartments the better. You can use it as your forested buffer zone.

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My driveway is roughly 400-450’. It goes steeply down to the middle and goes up to the house. It was gravel in 2002 when we moved in. About 5 years ago we had it paved. A few people have compared it to a roller coaster ride. I had a furniture place that was supposed to use a small box truck come to me but due to a breakdown came with a big box truck-not a tractor trailer. Due to the sharp drop at the top of the driveway they could not go down either forward or backwards without bottoming out at the top. I don’t know the specific grade. Thankfully, I have a truck with an 8 ft bed. We transferred everything to my truck, drove down then up the driveway to unload.
So yes, I would probably buy a house with that grade. The turn might be a deal-breaker but probably not. SE PA so we get snow and ice.
I have a small Kubota tractor with a 48" snowblower.
Oh, I forgot to mention I have 40 trees that line the driveway and it goes over a drainage culvert at the bottom. We had a plow truck slide off the side the first winter next to a tree. I had to pull him out with my 2500 and winches. Snowblowers for the win.

I’m going with the ‘buy it now’ camp.

My family used to vacation in Branson MO all the time. Driveways like you describe were par for the course. In fact, it doesn’t sound all that different from the crazy drive we had to navigate to get into the campground we used - with a 25’ 5th wheel.

And if you don’t - is it possible that a future buyer might demand an easement through your land? I have no idea how that works, but I envision a nightmare scenario where they sue you for it and win.

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no

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I have a driveway like Sonny’s Mom. Roughly 450ft with a 20-25% grade. The sides drop away between 3-4 feet on either side. Has you crest the top, you can’t see the parking area.

The majority of my property is that steep. Its a great sledding hill! We are in north central Pa, so plenty of winter weather, snow and ice. We have a self-propelled snowblower. We put a gate in at the bottom of the drive when we fenced in the yard. Sometimes its best to open the gate and then drive down :rofl:

There are properties with steeper and scarier driveways in my area.

I would get some comps for the 15 acres and make an offer.

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