Any new additions for this discussion?

Just bad landscaping in general makes me grind my teeth. My neighbor listed his house saturday and had to do kind of extensive landscaping. He had way over grown junk shrubs and an ailanthus tree{the spotted lantern flies favorite} and weedy ground cover. All the junk shrubs went and the tree. After that he had to grade the area and carve out beds. He went the easy way and planted about 12 or so red Knock-out Roses and pink petunias. I was not surprised but annoyed -I wanted to landscape the new beds. The entire house-all of it- is the same shade of grey. I was thinking grasses, false sunflowers, gailardias, black eyed susans, tithonia and salvias to take the blandness of the mountain of grey away but...Then there are the hostas planted in blazing sun. No, No, No. On my way to work in the morning, I pass a house that has been turned into a vegetable garden. No lawn, just mulch with raised beds made out of corrugated metal painted blue. big containers scattered around with herbs planted in them. Arched trellis's for whatever is going to climb. It's nice to see the dedication these folks put in. And directly next door...all plastic and fake plants and flowers. What a striking difference! From real to surreal.

Maybe your new neighbor will be a gardener after redo the yard over time.

We can only hope. As it is it's 100% better than it was even tho it's not up to my standards. Color, texture, movement, height! Before it was a hot mess of over grown randomly planted shrubs. They were never taken care of and grew out of shape. They took over the entire corner of the property and obscured any sight lines. A small nod to the recent flips on my street...2 houses were flipped and amazingly the flipper removed the nasty yuccas that had dominated one of the houses and replaced with fresh sod. Nothing else was added. The 2nd house went the same way. Ugly dwarf Alberta Spruce was removed and just sod was used. Both homes are nice and colorful now with thriving plants.

It's a bit sad to me how many homes have utterly ignored landscaping.
Daughter bought a flipped home, they are starting with a pretty blank slate.

breith95, you are so lucky!! The house to the east has been a 10 year nightmare!!
Then they decided to move this past year and what a mess. They decided to do the work on the house themselves and hired a landscaper, that was a joke! Long story short they put in pasture grass and now we all have it in our yards. The young couple that bought it paid $150,000 more than it was worth and then ended up having to have the asbestos removed. Don't get me started on flipper uppers!! Real Estate folks that tell folks there are other offers just to jack up the prices. We have seen some pretty bad folks trying to make money off those that don't know what they are really buying. Folks selling after just slapping new siding over gutter issues that leak and caused wet siding. Then there was the drug house across the circle!! Buyer beware of what you are buying!!

If there is a loan involved, the bank should be the primary force doing inspections and making sure the collateral is adequate security for their investment. But if the property alone is close to the value of the loan, that may not be much protection. Contracts should also include a final inspection clause.

This is interesting.
My next door empty house (for years) had been on auction a few times and then promptly rejected by the auction-winners all times. The guy who came second in the auction this time round offered to buy it from the bank (repossession, I guess). He plans to turn it into condos. That seems to be where the money is these-days, splitting a single house into 2 or 3, and selling the bits off separately.

I must say I do not relish living next to so many future neighbors. My yard used to be a sanctuary. Now I think it will be very noisy indeed. Well, as long as none of them smoke. That would be the death-knell for me. Smokers have no idea how far their stink actually travels. I would rather live next to a family of skunks (and I currently do as they secretly live under that house - so cute).

Orion, what the latest on the property next door?

Good news. The guy that bought it did renovations, and was not a flipper.
He decided to be a landlord and rent it out. He kept it as a 1-family house. In fact it may have been the local council that wanted it to become condos (to maximize housing stock of which there is a local shortage). We now have a family of very quiet people next door (we think Colombian origin). Well, quiet so far. We will see when the hot weather arrives. But at least they are not smokers, have no screaming babies or barking dogs.

Already to be kind I have dug up a honeysuckle plant that sits on our border fence. I do not want it sending branches next door into their space. It seems to fire out branches whenever I am not looking so it is had to keep tamed by pruning alone. They did not request that, but I am trying to be a good neighbor in advance. Act like you want to be treated.

I got lucky with a good flipper. He bought the house directly across the street for taxes owed $24,000. There was extensive cleaning to do and carpet plumbing repairs and a new heater and hot water heater. And a good kitchen up date. He ripped off the dingy screening and bad framing and made the porch open and airy. 100% improvement. Nice people bought the house and they are good neighbors. Not much in the way of gardeners but they keep the house neat and clean and the lawn mowed. Same with the people who bough the grey house. They keep it neat and clean, I'm waiting to see if the Knock-Out roses come back. The man who sold it to them died 2 weeks after moving out He and his son took their single engine plane out for a ride and the plane nose dived after take off, killing both of them.