Only $200,000? Columbia must be cheaper than I'd thought.
If you turned these houses around so that they faced the parking lot and the shops, they'd probably have more privacy to the rear and you'd have something of an Olde Worlde square thing going on.
From:
tino
(13:41 30 May 2004)
Note also that despite the fact that these houses back up to a strip-mall parking lot, there's no clear way to get to the strip mall from the houses. At the moment this isn't much of a problem, but after it's rained you'll be tramping through the mud.
Houses ideally won't back up to a parking lot; but if they do, it makes sense to make the most of it. You might have an awful view, but you could at least have some countervailing convenience.