This young silver maple has a couple of problems. At about four feet from the ground it forks into three stems, which are not growing together, but are pushing on each other as they grow.
At some time in the future this tree will fail, and one or more of the tops will come down. The fork problem can easily be fixed if some judicious pruning is done before the tree grows any larger. Two of these stems need to come off, and it would be nice if they had come off a couple years ago.
The other problem is the house that is only about forty feet away. Silver maples have very weak wood, are relatively short-lived, and they like to grow about ninety feet tall, then fall apart. I advise homeowners to not plant a silver maple within 100 feet of their house in order to prevent big removal expenses in the future.
The homeowner in this case needs to decide whether to fix the tree or remove it entirely and replace it with a more durable, long-lived shade tree. I may check back in a few months and see if the homeowner was able to make a decision.
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