Would you buy a house this close to the trainline (see pic inside)?

Jonbvn

I stayed in an Airbnb next to a busy rail line last year. For the first few days, the train noise disturbed me. However, towards the end of my stay I had tuned them out and I really didn't notice.

Davesnave

gerkin said:

I would never buy a house so close to a railway line or a motorway. When it is time to sell, a lot of potential buyers will have similar thoughts and discard the property.

Why developers build so close to a busy train line I do not understand. Sometimes you wonder if that is the last piece of land in UK available to build houses.

A lot of potential viewers may discount the property, but they will be the ones willing and able to pay more, as the price should reflect any obvious down-side.

There are also  differences between proximity to motorways and rail lines; the most obvious one being the intermittent nature of the latter, particularly the smaller ones. Developers want to build property and flog it. Clearly, they wouldn't build where they do if no one wanted to buy and marginal sites are cheapest.

There is plenty of land left to build houses on in this country, but not all of it is deemed suitable, as we also need to feed ourselves and have countryside available for leisure and wildlife. There is always going to be a trade-off with more marginal sites, but they aren't uninhabitable.

badger09

I once rented a one up one down apartment in a very old building close to the (Wales to Birmingham & all points north/south etc) railway line. Both slow & fast trains and none of them bothered me. Then one night I was woken by the most awful noise which felt like the building was collapsing around me.  - very loud banging & clanging, accompanied by very bright, flashing yellow light. I was alone and it was terrifying. I assume it was some sort of track laying or repair, but it is still a vivid memory after more than 20 years. 

We've lived fairly close to a motorway, just a large field between us, for over 20 years and the noise has never bothered us. Most of the time we don't hear anything, but if its damp and the wind is in a certain direction, there's a background 'hiss'. Only one of our viewers (in 2017) mentioned it, and none of the 10 lots mentioned it this time. I guess some people are more sensitive than others.

ikanoi

Have lived closed to train lines for many years of my life and honestly miss it now I'm away from them. The only issue really is the noise, you'll tune it out quickly in my experience but if you're a light sleeper or street noise bothers you now, maybe it's not the place for you.

[Deleted User]

getmore4less said:

We live 200m away from two rail routes.
 The passenger trains are not a problem they only run during the day. 

The night goods trains can be a pain they are very long and rattle past Windows open and wind in the right direction you hear them. 

We have this too. 99% of the time we don't hear trains but in the late evening during summer when the patio doors are open we hear the cargo trains go past and they are very loud. When we viewed the house we thought the trainline was that far away we wouldn't hear anything. 

MovingForwards

My home is about 60m from the train track, it's a commuter line, I don't even notice the trains whether I'm inside with / without the windows open or in the garden.

Don't get me wrong, I know they are about, but it's a gentle noise and the seagulls are louder. I've also got trees hiding the tracks.

peterhjohnson

Last year I considered a house a similar distance from a rail line. In it's favour, it was about 400m from the station and all trains stopped there so there were never any high speed trains passing.  Further along the same line were houses which were further from the station, the trains passed faster and there were several minor level crossing which the trains were required to "whistle" at. Not all train lines are equal :-)

NibblyPig

The consensus seems to be that you'll get used to it. I doubt it'd be an issue.
However when you come to sell your house you can imagine some fusspots being put off by it and it may reflect in the price - it may already be reflecting in the price if they've reduced it so much. 

bravotango

Is there a RightMove/Estate Agent Listing we can see for ourselves?

ZaSa1418

It would put me off but only because i have cats and i would be worried they would go play chicken with the trains