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From a former 18 year realtor, yes it will affect the buyers and the final sale price. I would not buy anywhere with extreme smells of any kind, especially drugs!
A chemical or factory smell, yes. Cooking smells? No... I'd probably be trying to make friends with the cooks so I could try their food! Marijuana, it would depend... if there's a band of weirdos living next door and they just smoke pot all day and lets their property look like crap, that would turn me off. If the normal neighbor who has a job during the week tokes up on Friday nights after mowing his lawn, I would not care.
Would extreme odors in a neighborhood prevent you from buying a house that by itself would be a good deal or suit your needs?
Live in an area where many cook some extremely spicey and smelly food. To the point where you can't open a window if you are a house or two away or across the street. Also there are places where potheads go out in their backyards and smoke that poop with regularity again unable to open windows or be outside when they're doing it. Used to be one only had to worry about apartment buildings but many neighborhoods of houses experiencing the same issues.
But along with things like noise, extreme colors would the odors of a neighborhood affect your buying decision
Absolutely.I would never buy a home that had extreme odors from cooking, pot, etc. buying a home is a financial investment ..not going to waste money on something that will make me miserable.
There are some cattle feed lots on I10 just before you get to Las Cruces, NM. It's a pungent aroma that overwhelms your senses. No way could I live in that area.
When I lived overseas while in the service, I drove through Quarto, Italy where there was a landfill. They put some sort of disinfectant on the garbage pile. It was quite nasty, yet there were a few homes in that area. I guess those people got use to that smell.
I'd rather live near an airport or a train track than a place that smelled awful. YMMV
I would avoid unpleasant odors. Papermill, rendering plant, hog farms and waste treatment plants immediately come to mind. Some people avoid curry.
We like to pull up a google map and look around the surrounding area to see what is out there before we buy. Be aware of apartments or businesses going in and check to see what types of business is out there. Make sure the area next to you isn't going to turn into a highly traveled road or a business. We don't buy next to open land for that reason.
I was wondering if it was curry he was concerned about as well. It tends to either be a love it or hate it type of smell. Personally I wouldn't buy a property under conditions where I would have to constantly smell it but I always thought of that more as an apartment thing than a SFH thing. Unless it's coming from a restaurant you shouldn't smell it even if the neighborhood has smaller lots. And looking for neighborhoods with larger lots is something to consider if you are extremely sensitive to such odors, assuming the region you live in has larger lots readily available at an affordable price.
I think it's kind of funny the number of people who get their knickers in a twist over other people's cooking smells.
I lived next to the Italian restaurant for a while. I found I was always hungry. For many years there was a big bakery just down the road from where I lived, and every time you went that way you got to smell fresh bread. Nice! When my wife and I go walking on a summery afternoon we try to guess what people are grilling ("Do you think that's steak or chicken?")
"Would smells in a neighborhood near a potential house affect your decision?" Absolutely....Ever been downwind of a papermill, or a CAFO ?
Regards
Gemstone1
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