What would you do?

DH and I started house-hunting about a month ago. We have gone to about 30 open houses. On our second day of looking, we found the perfect house for us. It has everything that we both want...but it's on a moderately busy road. When we have kids, they wouldn't be able to play in the street. However, the property is HUGE (61x168), and they would have so much backyard to play in.

The truth of the matter is that if this house was on a more desireable road, it would probably be out of our price range. Most of the stuff we've seen in our range has been cr@p.

Right now, we're going to keep looking, and keep our eye on the house. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. We just keep talking about it and really love it...except for the location.

Some people tell us there's no way we should even consider it, while others say that the huge yard makes up for it. What do you think? Would a busy road be a deal breaker for you?

Re: What would you do?

It would depend how busy the street is. If it's something like Bell Blvd I would probably go for it but I wouldn't want to live on Northern Blvd.

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For those familiar with the area, it's N. Jerusalem Rd. in North Bellmore.

Defintely more like Bell than Northern.

Message edited 10/15/2007 6:52:54 PM.

Re: What would you do?

It would also matter to me how far back it was set from the road and how close the nearest cross street is. If it's too close to the road, there is too much noise and I'd worry about accidents with vehicles possibly coming onto my property or hitting my house. If it's mid block, the vehicles have some time to pick up speed and I'd worry about my child wandering onto the road.

I'm not familiar with the particular road where this house is located. Usually if it's a double yellow line I'd stay away.

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For us, yes it was a deal breaker. The other houses you can make into your own, but you can't change location. The size of the yard wouldn't make up for it, I'd want my kids to be able to ride their bikes in the street and walk down to their friends houses without cars whizzing by. Plus, depending on how busy of a road you're talking about, the noise level would be a concern, esp at night.

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That's a deal breaker for me. Not even for kids to play in the street...I just wanted a nice quiet block.

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Buying a house is all about location, location and location. You have to think of resale value when you buy your home.

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For my DH and I, it would have been a no no to live on a busy street. I could quite possibly deal with kids playing in the backyard, I KNOW I'm reselling our home now and we had to consider that.

My Realtor told me something interesting, she said...if YOU flag something as an issue, many have and many will...even after you're the owners.

My vote is to keep looking and neither decide yes or no just yet.

Good Luck!

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I wouldn't buy it....You also need to think about the resale value of it. If you buy it and want to resell it in 5 or 10 years...will it be hard for you to sell?

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no way. I wouldn't buy a house on N. Jerusalem Rd. I grew up in the area and I know that street. It's very busy with blind curves. Backing out of your driveway is dangerous.

Keep looking. It's out there.

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I don't think I would buy on No. Jerusalem because it is too busy, but if you are thinking about it, consider how far set back it is from the road. A while back, they widened Newbridge Rd. in areas and I think through eminent domain they took about 10-15 feet from front yards where they deemed it necessary.

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I wouldn't buy it.

When we started looking informally, most of the "nicer" houses we saw were on main roads and we were discouraged.

Right after we started our formal search, FIL found out about a house for sale. It needed some work but, we got a great house in a great neighborhood with a large yard well within our price range!

With it being a buyers market right now I'd say wait, like other posters said, location is something you can't change.

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I'm sorry to say, I wouldn't do it either. I know that road, and drove down it to night school for months.

We aren't planning on a family and I wouldn't want it either, because of the noise of traffic, horns, exhaust from cars and trucks.

I actually wanted a huge lot for my gardening and privacy. We wound up going with a small house and small plot in an area that can't be beat.