House near motorway - would you buy?

rickeeee

Tancred why don't you spend a night in a hotel near a motorway
with the window open and see how you sleep, and if the noise bothers you too much.

We once stayed in one, and I couldn't sleep all night, the constant droning hum drove me nearly insane.

Better_Days

Ahh, needed a bit of light relief today. Am waiting to hear back about an offer I have put in on a property so need some distraction. Thanks guys. :T:T

Tancred - I'm afraid I'm a country bumpkin :Dand would hate to be so near a busy road. However I have some friends who live near the M4 in Wales - there is a constant drone, but they have got used to it.

pops5588

DaftyDuck wrote: »

You're RIGHT

('bout 11 minutes :rotfl:)

Darn it, was hoping for something more colourful than that

pops5588

Icecold wrote: »

Hi

I live in SE and so do understand your difficulty to a point

I live in M25/M3 area and it is very difficult to find any houses where you can't hear some motorway noise....however.....I PERSONALLY wouldn't live any closer to a motorway than I could avoid...I would certainly change my wish list if it meant I had no other option.

Just my personal view, good luck whatever you decide :beer:

Me and OH looked at a couple of properties near the M3 and the noise was just constant. The vendor was present at one of them, the house had been on since October last year and she had clearly taken to staying in and putting the tv on loud while people were looking round in a bid to drown the motorway out.

Fair play to her, she seemed a determined lady! Needless to say we didn't put an offer in...

DaftyDuck

Well, as a country bumpkin at heart as well, I bought a village house near the A1 in North Yorkshire, knowing it would be upgraded to A1(M) in a few years, with the newer road moving closer to the house. I sold before work started. Neighbours tried to sell once road was done. They went 18 months without a single viewing. Not one! The A1(M) was now closer, the gardens were constantly blighted by the whine of lorries (lorry turbo far worse than a car), and the whole village was blighted. Prices tumbled, where they would sell. Buyers with any flexibility just don't want a house blighted by noise.

As to more colourful, pops, I'd just hang around ....:coffee: ... the invective will start flying again, and we can all chill

Seabee42

I have lived on an A road in london. The other half wanted an extra bedroom and therefore this compromise was taken on.

Lorries used the road morning and night. Sure the other side of the house was quiet and even the garden as it was 20ft below the road level. Whilst we did get used to it (what choice do you have) I wouldn't do it again.

It took ages to sell and at quite frankly a very low price. It was a four bedroom detached house and sold for slightly over the price of a local two bedroom terrace......

I would say you should want a very good reason to buy and even if house prices rise you should expect that house to rise less as it is much less in demand. Nevermind the reverse.

00ec25

Tancred wrote: »

That would make most of London impossible for you to live in then! It seems to me that this thread is dominated by the point of view of the country bumpkin.

so why start the thread then?

I own a house 1 mile from M25 and 1/2mile to the left of a Heathrow flight path. I bought it 100% because it was the biggest house I could afford at the time as these facts were very clearly reflected in the price. Since then I have to let it at an obvious discount to other properties of a similar size, as the mantra goes: location, location, location

I own 2 other properties, the one I live in is 4 miles from M25 but has open farmland between me and the m'way. In certain atmospheric conditions I can still hear the drone although you do have to listen for it and it's effectively irrelevant even on hot summer nights. My weekend property is in countryside and noise (apart from cow blasts) is not an issue so in that sense yes, here speaks a country bumpkin

since you have already made up your mind then go do what you want to do and good luck with the rest of your life

Davesnave

kelpie35 wrote: »

Can you please pm me the link as I have had a few run in with her or anyone else that can oblige me.

Thank you

I'm afraid I won't send anyone money's house details. Anything I've found out confidentially should stay that way.

I can say that the house was reduced, but then so was the one she was last interested in buying - the latter by about £10k, I think.

However, we all know SSTC doesn't mean sold and completed, nor would the selling price show for at least 3 months after the sale.

phoebe1989seb

Davesnave wrote: »

I'm afraid I won't send anyone money's house details. Anything I've found out confidentially should stay that way.

I can say that the house was reduced, but then so was the one she was last interested in buying - the latter by about £10k, I think.

However, we all know SSTC doesn't mean sold and completed, nor would the selling price show for at least 3 months after the sale.

Me neither Dave - it's just not cricket (or whatever the saying is.......) to do that!

I worked it out by a process of elimination - and still could be wrong tbh (although I'm pretty certain I'm not!) - as could anyone else if like me they have too much time on their hands

phoebe1989seb

Regarding Tancred's dilemma - when we bought our current house in 2011 we had to compromise on something, as having sold our large family home in 2007, downsized to pay off our huge mortgage and subsequently *lost* loads on the project house we bought for cash in Essex without doing enough research beforehand, we had a smaller budget than anticipated

In order to remain mortgage-free and still retain enough cash to take on a fairly large project we opted to buy a house very close to an A-road. Admittedly this was a village in a fairly rural location that is also an AONB. The plus points for us were - the large garden (around 1/4 acre), the fact that we overlook fields etc to both front and rear elevations, that the house is not listed despite its character and that it had huge potential to extend.

Currently there is some secondary glazing - to be replaced with timber framed DG sashes at a later date - and in the back rooms the road noise is not an issue. In the garden the noise is barely noticeable - helped by the fact that we have a stream rippling away through the rear

Not only that, but the worst of the traffic is at certain times of the day - early morning and rush hour - and in the evening it is pretty peaceful. The worst offenders tend to be tractors and the occasional juggernaut - but in a rural location tractors are obviously part of the scenery

Our house was less expensive than a similar house in a quieter location would have been, but we weighed up the options and thought the trade-off was worth it.......

OTOH, my SIL used to live extremely close to the M27 and the road noise there was terrible - I couldn't have tolerated that