When SFR’s are Converted to Multiplexes: Should I be Upset?

 It all started kind of gradually. First I noticed one house on a corner half a block from my house (pictured below) that had been vacant for months. Then contractors and builders started coming over a period of time: they redid a staircase here and converted a basement there.  When they were finished, I realized what had once stood as a single family home had become a multifamily unit. The I saw another house on the opposite end of the street undergo this transformation (pictured right). Then another. And now one more. There are at least four homes in a 2-block radius from my bungalow that have been converted from single family residences into duplexes or from duplexes into multiplexes. When the first one went up I didn’t think much of it. Even after the renovation it remained vacant for months and I assumed they were having a hard time renting it. Then several months ago a bevy of tenants moved in (it is a 3-unit building now). As I watched the three other buildings steadily being converted while the housing market took the mother-of-all-belly-flops, I began to grow more and more anxious: would these new aparment buildings cause my first house to drop its value even further? Would my home become difficult to sell someday due to all the rentals surrounding it? Will the owners manage the properties well? It also made me a little angry: what right does whoever is developing these units have to do so in a neighborhood that’s struggling to keep its value above water anyway? After all, chances are they’re not living here. I imagined that they were somewhere far away, like Dublin. Or San Jose. Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe property values won’t drop (at least, not due to these new units). On the bright side, the units are brand new and look relatively tasteful (though gargantuan) from the outside.  As long as their landlords keep them up, I suppose they could add to our neighborhood and not take away from it the way a vacant, blighted house can.  But ideally I’d like to see the blighted SFR’s become renovated and then sold (affordably) as SFR’s. (And likewise, if it’s a blighted duplex, renovate and remain a duplex, not become a megaplex). Should I dream on? Let me know your thoughts.