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July 6, 2007
"Undesirable" yards now sought out for water features?
Are people's desires for water features making them look for homes that have big slopes in the back yard? Years ago, those types of yards were not high on a home buyer's list. However, as society's priorities are changing, I believe these yards are becoming more popular. More people are looking for less yard and more "wow". Water features can provide that pop plus create a peaceful environment for the homeowner to "get away".
I remember looking at some of these properties as a potential homebuyer. I think they were classfied as "gently sloping". About the only thing I thought they might be good for was to let the neighbors use it as a backstop to try out their newest automatic weapons.
However, a big slope in the back yard facing the house can now be a ready-made canvas for creating a mountain stream to be enjoyed by the homeowner. Just think, there's really no dirt that needs to be brought in. It's already there. The only issue is getting the right equipment back there to install boulders, etc.
I know this isn't an issue in some states, but is anyone else finding the same results in their area? Are you targeting these neighborhoods as potential clients in your marketing plans?
Posted by Mike Pettit at July 6, 2007 5:40 AM
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Comments
looking for some some plans or ideas on how to do a dry bed or a retaining wall to keep flowing water out of driveway and flooding my garage.
Posted by: jeanette at July 11, 2007 2:33 AM
I have recently purchased a house with a sloping back yard. The yard, actually, slopes from left to right, behind the house. I have a large deck attached to the back of the house. My intentions are to have a pond on the upper end of the yard and have a waterfalling stream run beside the steps, I have two 90 degree landings returning back towards the house, down to a larger pond below that will be incorporated into a "paver" patio right outside of my walk out basement area. I fell in love with this house partly because the sloping back yard.
Posted by: Jim Conte at July 11, 2007 7:39 AM
We bought our house 3 years ago and it has a spring fed, small pond around 100 yards from the back of our house with a steep dike that goes down to the back of our house. This pond has a spillway that runs into a creek along side the property that eventually feeds into the Wakarusa river. We had a very bad rainy couple days and got 11 inches of rain that washed out our spillway completly. I had alwasy wanted to have a beautiful pond and then make it look like it is coming over the dike, down the dike spilling over a large rock waterfall into a pond at the bottom of the dike. We have a wonderful porch that we could watch all the wildlife visit the real pond and even come to the smaller hand build pond below. We have a lot of wild life and feed the deer and birds. This is on a 5.3 acre lot which is mostly trees when you get past the pond. We would just love to have a water feature in our yard and would get much enjoyment out of it. So would the wildlife.
Posted by: Vickie Colvin at August 29, 2007 10:11 AM
