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We were looking at homes in the mid 500K range, so this one falls just below that, kind of why it caught my eye. Very tempting, it's just such a big decision. My pro-con list was dead even. We have two small children so that is a concern but it's not likely that they will roam freely without adult supervision and with a large yard, they will have plenty of room to play. There are many nice neighboring streets and like I stated earlier, you can walk to town, to school and to the library so that is a draw. It just seems too good to be true.
How old are your kids? You'd need to have a fenced yard if they are below a certain age. Once they get older you won't have any issues with them trying to run into the street.
If there are parks nearby that's a perk too, but you won't be able to let them cross the road alone anytime soon because of the way people drive these days.
I think you'll end up regretting it. Seems like there's a lot of inventory in RVC these days...and there's sure to be a lot more as we get into Spring. Your budget might just get you something similar on a better block in a nicer part of town. IMO 20k is not nearly enough of a discount to make living on Lakeview worth it. Especially in that part of RVC which can get pretty congested.
We were looking at homes in the mid 500K range, so this one falls just below that, kind of why it caught my eye. Very tempting, it's just such a big decision. My pro-con list was dead even. We have two small children so that is a concern but it's not likely that they will roam freely without adult supervision and with a large yard, they will have plenty of room to play. There are many nice neighboring streets and like I stated earlier, you can walk to town, to school and to the library so that is a draw. It just seems too good to be true.
You can probably find something that needs alot of work in quieter parts of town. I was looking at a house on walnut right around the block that was in the low 4's but it's not on mlsli anymore.
To me, having young kids is only one of several issues. There are other little things that when taken all together can make living there a pain: noise, backing out of your driveway, having guests over (where do they park?), etc.
I have two young kids...they always played in the backyard and I will say this -- they are more attentive to their surroundings than other kids (the number of times I have seen kids running through parking lots freaks me out). Never had to worry about kids playing in front of my house too and breaking something (LOL)...for guests I would get an overnight parking pass so they could park on another street, not really that big a deal. Our driveway was long enough to fit 2 cars and 1 in the garage. And backing out of the driveway made me a better driver! Honestly, some of the side streets in my village were not much safer with all the cars zipping through it at times. Again, it's all about tradeoffs..our home was priced about $75000 less than other homes on a quieter street at the time, for us it was worth it.
When I was looking for a home, I came across a house I really liked. It was on a side street but a portion of that side street had a single yellow line and ended about 2 houses away from the house I liked. My husband and I were skeptical b/c of traffic. The single yellow line was a clue that the street was more busy than others. We put an offer in on the house and got outbid anyway but now that I reside in the area of that town, I realize...that street is not busy much. It's a cut through side street..if you know about it and right outside the house we put an offer on, the traffic is less for some reason in that specific area. HOWEVER, if this is a main road you are speaking about, I wouldn't do it. I have a 7 month old now and there is no way I would want to live on a main road with 2 lanes and traffic.
Just to give you an idea of something, I had a realtor in 2 weeks ago to give me an appraisal or an idea of what we could sell our home for b/c my husbands job transferred him a lot further from our home. I was told I can get somewhere between $360k and $375k.. I asked the realtor, why is there a ranch that is similar to the size of my house listed for $329k? He said that house is on a main road (25A in Suffolk County where it's only a 2 lane road with double yellow lines). He said that's a main road, and it's very hard to sell and not desirable. Who would want to live on a main road like that? I said, really, the price is that much difference for the same type of house to be on a main road? And he said yes, it is. So in other words..in my opinion, price wise, according to this realtor, my house is worth $50-$60k more than the house that is located on the main road.
As i said before, with 2 young children like you have, I would stay away. I would get worried about them getting hit by a car but I also live on a dead end street where kids can play so when I was looking, that really turned me on to my house. BUT if you do decide to go forward with this house, $20k less in price, in my opinion is just not enough to sell me to buy on a main road. I know everytime I saw a house was located on a main street, I didn't even bother going to look at it. Me and my husband both agreed and thought it was nuts for us to even bother going to look. HOwever, like I said, the house I put an offer in on and was outbid, well that street doesn't get too much traffic. And, like I said by the time you get to the house we put the offer on, most traffic turns onto a different street before you got to the house we were interested in. If the single yellow line crossed the front of that house, then there was no way we would have even considered it.
I know, if I had to weight it out, my children's safety would be my biggest concern with traffic. Maybe I'm a little too OCD but I know young children listen to an extent and you never know what could happen. Also, resale would probably take a long time. Then there would be the traffic noise. I know my son has a hard time sleeping at night...every noise he hears affects him and wakes him up. I couldn't imagine living near traffic b/c of his sleeping habits.
The key concern I have (my daughter is 4 yrs old) is when she walks on the sidewalk, as there is no buffer (ie: parked cars) between her and passing traffic. It makes even casually playing with her (say she did something silly while walking to the car and we say "I'm going to catch you!" so she runs a few steps towards the street) gasp moments sometimes.
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