Ever Lived on a Main Road? Tell Me About It!

[AKL_Megs]

Do you live on a main road, or have you ever lived on a main road?

How about on a corner lot near a traffic light?

We found a great bank owned home that we are thinking of putting an offer in on. It is on what I would describe as a semi-main road, and it is right at the corner of the main road and another street, at the base of a subdivision.

I am concerned about the street noise, and of the constant stop and go of the cars at the traffic light.

I am sure it is something you get used to, but I would love to hear some firsthand testimonials.

Thanks!

 

[java]

You don't want it.

Not just daytime noise- but imagine the lights shining into your house at night - from the intersection- headlights as well as the signal lights.


You will have noise coming into your house from 2 sides. We lived on a corner with a stop sign. Not a busy street and I hated it. It was just the stop and go of the cars. And the noise. It bothered me. We couldn't sit in the backyard and have a conversation(There was a busy street a block away too)

My brother currently lives on a corner with a light. And he hates it. It's loud. They are on a bus route so you get bus noise too.

I lived across from a hospital another time. Now that was really noisy- but I got used to it. The problem was when anyone would try to sleep over they had to leave.

My vote- DON'T BUY IT.
Location location location.

One more thing. Are you looking at the house during commuting time? School bus time? Mid daytime noise? If you love the house and really want it- make sure you check it out during all times of the day- during the week and the weekend. Because if you are only seeing it on a saturday afternoon it may be much noiser during a Monday morning.

 

[freckles and boo]

It isn't quite the same, but when we were looking at houses we found one that backed on to railroad tracks. The house was great but we were concerned about the tracks. Our realtor (who is a friends' mom) warned us we would regret it - if not immediately then when it was time to sell. We ended up buying a house about four blocks away from that house and at night we can hear the rumble of the trains from here. It has to be really loud there. I would also be concerned about traffic if you have or plan to have children.

 

[AKL_Megs]

Glad I asked!!! Whew! Thanks! I never thought of all of the things you mentioned!

 

[NJMomma]

We live at the intersection of two main roads in our town. Our town is small, there are only 7 traffic lights in town and we are at one of them. The streets here are not as busy as they would be in bigger towns, but they are among the busiest streets in our town. We are also down the street from the high school and the hospital. During the day, the ambulances will run their sirens to get through the intersection, but not at night. It's not that bad here really - I can't say how it would be for you, your corner might be a lot busier. We really wanted to buy in this town, and at the time, there were not many houses in our budget that met our criteria (sewers and no flooding). I don't let the kids play in the front yard, just as a precaution, but our backyard is large, so it's no big deal. The worst part is shoveling snow, lots of sidewalks here on the corner. We are happy here. In the ideal world we would in a cul-de-sac, but we are happy here, and have to plans to leave.

 

[MichelleVW]

No way would I ever buy a house on a main road!

 

[disneystacy]

Location,Location,Location

If you buy a house with a ugly kitchen you could always spend the money and fix it up. No amount of money will change the location of a home.

 

[tazdev3225]

I lived on a main road that was also a major highway. The noise was loud at first after that you barely noticed it. My parents still live in that house and it has been 43 years. They have slept through accidents, sirens, noise from kids, etc. They have 2 bus stops on their block and a high school 3 blocks away. A lot of the kids head to either of the stops after school. They have never had a problem. When my DH and I were looking to buy a house I wanted the one on their block. My DH wanted to have a big back yard, he won. I would still move back there in a heartbeat. It really wasn't bad to us.

 

[barkley]

You don't want it.

Not just daytime noise- but imagine the lights shining into your house at night - from the intersection- headlights as well as the signal lights.


You will have noise coming into your house from 2 sides. We lived on a corner with a stop sign. Not a busy street and I hated it. It was just the stop and go of the cars. And the noise. It bothered me. We couldn't sit in the backyard and have a conversation(There was a busy street a block away too)

My brother currently lives on a corner with a light. And he hates it. It's loud. They are on a bus route so you get bus noise too.

I lived across from a hospital another time. Now that was really noisy- but I got used to it. The problem was when anyone would try to sleep over they had to leave.

My vote- DON'T BUY IT.
Location location location.

One more thing. Are you looking at the house during commuting time? School bus time? Mid daytime noise? If you love the house and really want it- make sure you check it out during all times of the day- during the week and the weekend. Because if you are only seeing it on a saturday afternoon it may be much noiser during a Monday morning.

no kidding about the lights we had neighbors in our former subdivision whose house was situated such that the headlights from every freaking car that entered shined into their living room so brightly the neighbors in back of them could see a glow emitting from the rooms behind it. i can't imagine why anyone wanted to live in that house and it sat FOREVER when it went up for sale.

location IS everything-and you do have to check a place out during different times of the day/nite and weekends vs. weekdays. we lived near a school and when people who lived on the streets that were the boundaries around the school sold the realtors always tried to market the homes as being so convenient for parents of kids-what prospective buyers did'nt know was those homes were a nitemare to live in during the school year. in the mornings and when school let out it was bumper to bumper and you could'nt get in or out of your own driveway-and to make matters worse, there were these horrendously rude parents who assumed that if a driveway was vacant it was 'fine' to park their car in it and walk their kid across the street to the school (to avoid the car pool insanity) which left homeowners blocked into their own garages and unable to get out

 

[RadioNate]

I'd skip it too. While I don't live on a main road per say I do live in a high traffic area in our subdivision.

When you enter our subdivision you come to a T-intersection where you have to go left or rights into the two sides of the neighborhood. We live in the second house when you turn right. So everyone going to the 'right' side of our subdivision goes past our house.

Annoying!

I don't notice road noise at all (except the teens sitting at the stop sign waiting to turn with their stereos blaring) but the amount of cars and how fast people go still bother me. I can't let the kids play out front because of the speed of the cars. We also get a lot of "loitering" traffic. They come in the neighborhood, make the right turn and realize they don't know where to go so they sit in front of our house while they figure it out. A real problem....no but still irritates me because our grass is all dead from the exhaust. We are also the driveway that everyone turns around in. Again, not really a problem but I still don't like it.

 

[MichelleVW]

Most houses on main roads don't have street parking which would be a major negative to me.

 

[smiley]

Do you live on a main road, or have you ever lived on a main road?

How about on a corner lot near a traffic light?

We found a great bank owned home that we are thinking of putting an offer in on. It is on what I would describe as a semi-main road, and it is right at the corner of the main road and another street, at the base of a subdivision.

I am concerned about the street noise, and of the constant stop and go of the cars at the traffic light.

I am sure it is something you get used to, but I would love to hear some firsthand testimonials.

Thanks!

We lived on a street one road away from a main road and the noise was unbelievable!!! We couldn't open our windows without listening to traffic. If I were you the only reason I'd buy that house is if it were for a rental. When we were in the back yard all we could hear was traffic noise.

And, even though we lived on a circle, it was on very long hill and our house was located near the bottom of the hill. Our son could never play out front due to cars driving so fast down our street.

When we purchased our current home our main concern was noise. We have a church parking lot directly behind us and were initially concerned about what kind of noise would come from people frequenting the church. The good news is that there is very little noise from the church patrons and they have turned out to be really good neighbors.

I don't care how good the deal is for you, I'd spend more for a better location.

 

[DisneyMom81]

I grew up on the corner of the two bussiest roads in my town (light at the corner). We had about 2 acres, and we really had no problems what so ever. There was more honking then there would be on a little side road (like where I live now) but it never bothered me/us.

 

[kacaju]

No way, I would not live there. My first thought is how many accidents does this intersection have?
I know an accident can happen anywhere, but I would not want to be the person calling 911 once a month because someone blows through the red light!!

 

[powellrj]

I live in a town of about 60,000 so its not really a large city, but its not a small town either. We use to live on one of the main streets. Our corner was the busiest corner in town in terms of traffic. Not sure why, but they have done studies that showed that corner saw more traffic than any other corner in town. I have to say, we lived about 6 houses down from the corner, BUT there was a fire station sitting on the corner, so not only did we live on a busy street with a busy corner, plus we had a fire station!

The down sides were traffic, no sidewalk, houses close together.

The up sides were winters were great, we were always one of the first streets plowed, everyone knew where you lived, we never had solicitors (not sure why, but I guess it was the lack of on street parking).

We had a small yard, but we did have an inground pool in the backyard. The traffic noise was never really an issue. I guess you do get use to it.

Now thinking back, our first apartment was next to a railroad track, and this house is only 3 blocks behind the house on the main drag. We are 2 blocks from a highway and sometimes you do hear traffic, but its never been an issue with sitting outside or sleeping.

Reading my post, you may not want to listen to my advice, it seems we are immune to noise!

 

[Disney Doll]

I think it depends on the size of the town and the amount of traffic.

We have 3 main roads that go through our town. They parallel each other. I live on a secondary road that runs perpendicular between 2 of these main roads & therefore "connects" them. On my secondary road is the ambulance headquarters, a grammar school a church and a cemetery. My front door faces the secondary road. If I stand on my front porch, I look across the street at the church, with the cemetery diagonal to the right. Additionally, my house is on the corner of the secondary road and a small side street that leads into a fairly quiet neighborhood.

The population in my town in 2007 (the most recent info I can find) was almost 35,000.

Truthfully, I don't find it terrible living on my fairly busy street. The noise from the ambulances, school buses and church activities sort of becomes background noise. In my town, I am considered to be living in an "average" location....certainly there are more "upscale" neighborhoods, but there are also less desirable neighborhoods. That being said, my house has gained (and retained) value since we bought it 15 years ago, even with the recent market downturns. It is still worth considerably more than we paid for it.

So, consider your town's overall desirability, and the location's overall desiriability within that town as part of your final decision process.

 

[minkydog]

I would never buy a house on the main drag. We have a 14yo son who is very mentally handicapped and has no sense of danger at all. We keep our doors locked at all times, but we have occasionally messed up and he has gotten away from us. At least we live in a quiet subdivision--he didn't get hurt but I lost about 19 years off mylife! If we lived on a main street I would never sleep again. Forget the noise, it would be totally a safety issue for me.

 

[TheZue]

We used to live on a fairly busy main road. I wouldn't do it again. We ended up not only with traffic problems, but also more crime than our quiet neighborhood we are in now and more pedestrians too...which included pedestrians that weren't always in their right mind due to alchohol etc. There was absolutely no privacy and it really was like living in a fish bowl so we almost never had our living room curtains open. Then there were a lot of traffic accidents, around every two weeks there would be one so there was that issue. But the big one for us was the pet issue.

At the time we didn't have kids but it would have been a nightmare. We had two cats go missing there. I'm not sure if they were run over, but there is a pretty good chance they were. It would have been a nightmare having kids there with all the cars; it's just not safe.

I'm now at the point that I won't even live within a block of a super busy road.

 

[rie'smom]

We were on a highway and didn't have stop lights. One night though, a Mack truck went off the road and onto my neighbor's livng room! Our houses were about 100 ft off the road, so the truck had to travel a little bit. The miraculous thing was that it was summertime and her kids usually slept on the floor watching tv but that night they slept upstairs in their bedrooms.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

We lived on a busy 4 lane straightaway for about 6 years before we bought our house. It was very loud. Buses, trucks, cars, sirens, horns, etc. We were near a major highway as well as a fire station so any type of accident on the highway sent the fire trucks and ambulances screeching up there day and night. Exhaust fumes left a black film over everything when the windows were open. The yard was fenced but one day our dog got out and thankfully our neighbor saw him on the sidewalk and ran over and put him back in or he would have been hit for sure if he stepped into the street - around our house cars were up to 50 mph and there's no way they would have been able to stop. I don't think I would have felt too safe there with children.

We moved from there to our house on a pretty quiet, dead end street. I appreciated the calm and quiet so much going from there to here.