When I first began teaching, it was out of the townhouse apartment that I lived in at the time, fully attached to others on both sides. The space itself had its own problems as my ambitions for the space were bigger than the space itself, however, that really still has nothing to do with whether or not it was attached to anybody else's home. I have found myself to be much more self-conscious about my own practicing when it comes to attached living arrangements.
I do currently live in a detached house on all sides, and there is more space so as far as my ideas fitting the space I have, it's at least a better fit now. I am still conscious about my practicing with both voice and piano, but I definitely feel less intrusive now that there is more space between the neighbors and our home.
Any voice coaches I have visited in the San Francisco area have their teaching out of their attached flats. I used to feel self-conscious about that, but then I came to figure that the neighbors must have some kind of tolerance, as it had been that way for years. It is how my coaches ran their teaching though, and it must not have caused any problems that were too big to not be overcome.
During my second year of teaching, I started traveling to some students' homes, and I continued to do that for about 4 or so years. At first I was not very efficient about scheduling, and my traveling days would not make much sense with regard to the rest of my schedule. After a year of that, plus having one heck of a schedule surrounding that, I finally at least condensed my traveling time to one day. However, eventually students with busy schedules thought it was no big deal to arrive back at their house very late (20 minutes or more) into our scheduled lesson, or stand me up altogether whilest I sit outside their house or in my car waiting. I also had a dog excitedly pee on me twice in somebody's house, had another biggish dog run across the room, launch himself into the air and pounce on my lap as I was sitting down to teach, ripping my books, and then dealt with the general annoyances of being in other people's living rooms most of the time, where there were almost always other distractions. Once I got my gig singing in the schools, I decided it was the right time to make the switch to teaching ONLY from my home, and I gave the option to my traveling students to come to me or stop lessons with me, and every single one of them decided to travel to me. I could have stopped those traveling days much earlier than I finally did, I am figuring.
There may be some people who feel fine about traveling to students' houses, especially if they are charging extra for it (which I stupidly wasn't) and are able to have a truly workable environment, but personally speaking, I don't generally recommend it. At the same time, I did find some interesting students that way whom I still have within my studio. With my current schedule though, I wouldn't make plans to go back to traveling to students' houses.
Topic: Detached house a must?