AIBU to focus our house search on a cul-de-sac?

Parking is a big issue on my cul de sac as half the houses do not have space for drives and most households seem to want a car per adult.

However, the kids all play out together and it's part of the reason we haven't moved on.

We also have a cannabis grower/dealer . I never thought about the connection to a cul de sac 😂

I grew up in a cul-de-sac and used to play out with my friends. My parents still live in the same house I grew up in and I don't think it happens anymore in the way it used to (I haven't asked my parents, but I haven't observed it when I visit them). I would say it's still a nice friendly street though, possibly because of its layout.

In your position I think I'd move this from a "deal breaker" to a "nice to have".

In my experience cul de sac equals parking wars. Never again!

Unnecessary.

I live on a cul de sac and there are 9 kids that play out together. You can have anything you like as you priority when looking for somewhere, but cul de sac might limit things as they are not so common. But if that’s what you want, that’s what you want!

Moved from a cul de sac to a cul de sac. Obviously the privacy is nice and in general it’s pretty peaceful.

When our children were growing up in the 90s children from our Close played together or often in our garden. As ours grew up new children often played on the huge garden of the corner house which was open.
The one we live in now is all bungalows. There are some children but you don’t see them playing out.

My main worry now would be delivery drivers in cars and vans. All on tight timescales and dashing in and out. So if I had Grandchildren I wouldn’t want them playing out in the cul de sac.

I’d keep an open mind as you are probably trying to recreate something from your childhood and may be disappointed.

We live in a cul-de-sac of 22 houses. We moved here when our children were under 5 years old.

There were loads of other kids for them to play with, either out at the front, or the'd be in and out of each other's gardens.

The cycle of life has happened, and a lot of our neighbours have died, or moved away etc, with new families moving in.

There are still quite a lot of children living in the street, but far fewer play out the front than when our children were young. Still get a few on bikes, or playing ball games, but not many now.

One thing to consider, which until yesterday, I'd never thought of 😅. One of the houses was raided by police yesterday, as it was being used as a cannabis farm. The police said that the criminals choose quiet roads like ours, as there's no through traffic, either vehicular or pedestrian, so they are less likely to be spotted/reported.

I live in a cul-de-sac where the kids all play out and that’s fine except the parents seem to think they don’t have to teach their children road sense. It is still a public road with traffic and very young children are allowed to play unsupervised. I have to come in very slowly as they can run out from behind parked cars. They also abandon bikes and scooters everywhere which we have to get out and move so we can park. I think we have a parent problem!

You can set any parameters you like, it’s your house! The only issue is that you want to live on a certain type of road, not for the road itself, but because of other people. You can’t choose the other people unfortunately. There might not be any children, they might be the wrong age, they might not enjoy playing outside in the street, they might be absolutely tearaways!

There’s so few decent houses for sale now you would be limiting what’s available to you even more. You’re also assuming that the cul de sac will be occupied by families with children of a similar age. You’re more likely to find this demographic on a new build estate.

On another note, I could think of nothing worse than living on a cul de sac where parking is likely to be a bigger problem than when you were a child.

We live in a cul de sac of 8 houses and no child plays out in a communal area. 4 of the 8 houses have children under 18 but a mix of ages and the children don’t play together at all.

Round here I would say that the families who have kids with friends very close by tend to live on the new build estates, which have a lot of young families living there. We live in a part of town where the age profile is a bit older so I think that has been limiting in my kids forming friendships with kids close by - the pool is a lot smaller!