What I didn't mention is a big part of the reason the realtor thought it was okay to place it there is because the electric meter, air conditioner, gas meter, and a window well are there too. There is so much utility stuff there that the generator doesn't really stick out as much as it might without all that other stuff. Trust me, I spent a lot of time looking at alternate locations for the generator. Due to the design of the house it would be very difficult to run electrical and gas through the basement to the other side of the house. I seriously looked at putting the generator by my detached garage, but I can't recall why I scrapped that idea.
If it comes time to sell I will do some landscaping to block the view of the generator and other stuff. Nobody can see this stuff from the street as the house is well back from the street and has trees blocking the view.
When the house was built in 1980 little thought was given to designing things to keep the utilities out of view. The house was built on the cheap so they probably didn't want to pay extra to place the electric meter out of sight on the back or other side of the house. The house had electric baseboard heat and no central air when I bought it so only an electric meter at the time. I added central air and natural gas service. It made sense to place this stuff on that side of the house because that is where utility room is.