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yet another real estate q: would you buy a house within 500 feet of the fairfax cty parkway?
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Anonymous
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I am worried about air pollution (sending the kids out for "fresh air") and resale value. (And noise pollution, though it doesn't seem that loud.) And what if they expand the road to more lanes?
If not, how far away would you want the house to be? thanks for any thoughts that might help our spousal disagreement... |
Anonymous
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wow....500 feet? No way! The resale is going to be tough.
If you're inclined to do it though, look into the county records to see what the future plans are for the pkwy. I would want to be at least one block in from any main road. That provides the best of both worlds...quiet yet accessible. good luck. |
Anonymous
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No, I'd be thinking about resale. Plus it might be a good deal now, but I bet in a year or two you will be sick of the noise. I'd make sure you go at rush hour to hear the noise. Then try and imagine what it will be like to be sitting on your deck at the busiest time. What about lights from cars at night?
I'd give it a lot of thought. |
Anonymous
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We bought a house on a busy highway. we are set back enough that noise isn't too much of a problem, though you can definitely hear it. I also know that selling the house will be tough when the time comes - probably a decade or too away.
Having said all that, we are very happy with our decision. Our house was probably $200-$250,000 less than a comparable house a block away from the road, and it really doesn't bother us at all. Lights from cars at night is a very strange thing to worry about, btw. |
Anonymous
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Nope.
The market is flooded with homes - most overpriced - so pick something else, offer $20K less than listing and you will likely get it. |
Anonymous
I disagree. This is a common concern, especially among people who have lived on or near major roads. |
Anonymous
| Thanks. We were at an open house on a Sun afternoon-the rush hour idea hadn't occurred to me and the lights in the windows from cars at nights--didn't think of that either. |
Anonymous
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Resale value should not be a concern. Whatever you pay will have already taken the parkway into account. You would pay less because of the parkway, but the value is not going to decline because of it, since it's already there. If you paid a premium for a nice quiet neighborhood and THEN they built a highway through it, I would worry about resale value.
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Anonymous
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I wouldn't worry about the resale value as much as just being able to sell at all. We compromised a bit on location back when the housing market was hot and we were happy to find something that didn't get quickly snatched up. When we went to sell though when things slowed down our place took much much longer to sell than other comps - primarily because of location (even though we priced it to account for location).
Location, location, location. |
Anonymous
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We're embroiled in the home search game right now, and if there's one thing I learned it's that you have to be flexible with your expectations. I have always said I would never live near a highway or even on a double-yellow-line street. But we've been looking for months and haven't found the right thing, so we've begun to reconsider that. It's easy for people to sit here on a message board and say I would never live in a house with x y or z, and in isolation I would totally agree. But if you don't have millions to spend you are going to be making some big compromises, and you just have to decide what's worth sacrificing for other benefits.
For example, we have determined that we want to live in Arlington, Falls Church, or McLean. If we found the perfect house it, the presence of a highway nearby wouldn't necessarily be a dealbreaker if it meant we could get into a house we couldn't otherwise afford. On the other hand, we would not consider expanding our search to farther burbs, even though the perfect house might be out there. I'd rather live near a highway in Aelington than on the perfect street in Fairfax. But that's just me--everyone has different priorities and makes their own compromises. |
Anonymous
| Hell No |
Anonymous
| No way. |
Anonymous
| Is the sound barrier wall right in your backyard? That should make for nice view...not! |
Anonymous
| I would not. We looked a house that we fell in love with. It was a beautful home, 30K less than what we wanted to spend, walking distance to metro, great schools BUT we didn't put an offer because it was on a main road. The road was not very busy, other than rush hour, however, we have two small kids. I was afraid one of them would run to the road and get hit by a car. The other issue is resale. Hundreds of people had looked at this offer, and they didn't have a single offer. I had an apartment once on a main way, and the most disturbing noise were the motorcycles in the middle of the night. |
Anonymous
| depends on how much money I had. |