Would you buy a house close to a dual carriageway?

catoutthebag

Location location location
Do you have little nippers or 4 legged pets? What if they run onto the road?

You have doubts and know it's not right.

Patience is a virtue

StumpyPumpy

I wouldn't buy it unless it was at a substantial discount over other less blighted houses and it otherwise ticked all the boxes and even then I'd think twice.

We've lived near(ish) to motorways and the general traffic noise is often something you get used to (though we could only hear it if the wind blew in a specific direction) The bigger problem for us was occasional noise. For instance, in the middle of the night you could sometimes hear a high powered motorbike speeding down it full throttle or the odd joyrider being chased by the police with a helicopter overhead. These were far enough apart not to get used to it but frequent enough to mean you tended to leave windows shut in all but the hottest weather.

Depending on exactly how close it is and what the ground is like, not only may you have to put up with noise, but you also have vibration: often resonating at a very low and annoying frequency and can be worse that the audible noise.

One thing that would be worthwhile checking is whether or not there are plans to put down noise reducing road surfacing (or if the road already has it) as it can make a big difference. Unfortunately it can also take time to do - the road I mentioned above is due to have the relevant stretch redone in 2017.

SP

dirty_magic

Not if I could wait and find a house just as nice in a quite area. Our flat was near a dual carriageway, probably just under half a mile away, and we could hear it from there! I always used to think how loud it must be for the houses along it. It had a 40mph speed limit too!

makeyourdaddyproud

catoutthebag wrote: »

Location location location
Do you have little nippers or 4 legged pets? What if they run onto the road?

You have doubts and know it's not right.

Patience is a virtue

There might be a taxidermist the other side of the dual carriageway so all is not lost!

Lord_Baltimore

Would you buy a house close to a dual carriageway?

No.

phoebe1989seb

We purchased a house that was on an A-road - not a dual carriageway - in a rural location in an AONB in Wiltshire. Whilst it was (literally) a wreck when we bought it, it was potentially a very attractive period house (thatched, stone, wide frontage), but it had no front garden - just a very wide pavement with a layby in front so it was still set well back from the road.

We had driveway parking for several vehicles - although I agree with ManuelG, that getting into/off the drive could be a nightmare at certain times of day, to the extent that we - and a few of our neighbours that had no drive - parked on the layby.

The thing that was most irritating was the combination of road noise and the (three-storey) building shaking when an articulated vehicle went past at speed......the limit was 30 mph but most drivers ignored this. Out in the rear garden was a different story, we had about 1/3 acre and it was pretty peaceful out there. We also have a cat, but he was content to stay within the confines of our garden/neighbouring countryside (we had fields behind) and never ventured out to the front.

We lived there three years - the time it took to restore the house - and in the last year (2014) we had timber DG with acoustic glazing fitted - it made very little difference imho.

When we sold last year the price we achieved was probably about £200k less than if our house had not been situated on an A-road.

It certainly put me off buying on *any* kind of main road and I wouldn't even consider it if the price was no lower than similar houses in quieter locations to compensate.....

Loopy28

I personally wouldn't. I have cats so that would definitely rule it out for me and I couldn't stand the traffic noise.

I can imagine resale will be very difficult too.

If you don't plan on having pets or mind the noise and plan on staying there long term then obviously don't rule it out but will put a lot of restrictions on you in the future.

freeisgood

Actually,my main concern would be all the pollution day and night, 365. Studies have shown it is linked to all sorts of health conditions.

sniggings

onix22 wrote: »

Hi,

We are first time buyers who struggle to buy a home. We found something that we like in beautiful Surrey but it is next to a busy carriageway. The house is priced as other houses in quiet areas though.

I ran a free valuation and it turn out it is valued 20 % less than the price they are asking, even if they slashed the price with 10 %.

I am afraid that even if we manage to buy the house at a lower price they ask at present, we will have problems selling it in the future, even if the area is really nice.

What do you think?

why consider it if other properties are a similar price?

Old_Git

it depends on the amount of traffic on the dual carriageway .
The local motorway runs past the end of the cul de sac I live in .
Apart from rush hour I rarely hear the traffic.