If you want an empty space at the top of the ListView
I would do it with a padding.
Add this to your ListView
in the layout xml
android:clipToPadding="false"
android:paddingTop="25dp"
You can also do it programmatically but doing it in xml should always be preferable if possible:
float paddingTopInDp = 25.0f;
Resources resources = getResources();
float paddingTopInPixels = TypedValue.applyDimension(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_DIP, paddingTopInDp, resources.getDisplayMetrics());
listView.setClipToPadding(false);
listView.setPadding(0, (int)(paddingTopInPixels + 0.5f), 0, 0);