Thinking about buying a house near railroad tracks in Austin??

[MJinAustin]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

The smaller pool of buyers and the price are really pretty much the same thing in this case. I essentially go 10% off the price from the otherwise comparable houses in the are when I bought it, and knocked 10% of the same when I sold it, and it moved very quickly. I think the issues come when someone buys the house cheap then wants to sell it for the same price as non-impacted properties in the area. The bigger trick is to get it for the appropriate reduction at the beginning instead of trying to get a buyer to overpay like you did when you bought it. There will always be people looking to buy into certain areas that stretch their budget, too, so if you manage to get noticeably below the average house price, you might end up with a pretty hot property.....

Good point.

[Weatherguy]

I think you should go with your intuition. I'd never buy close to the tracks. In Allandale, for example, the only run-down properties in the neighborhood are those right across the street from the tracks along Great Northern (not all of those properties, but many of them).

[springbean]

No way would I buy that close to RR tracks. I would worry less about price for resale and more about how long it would take to find the right buyer.

[Mckellyb]

We've been close to tracks, before.... Not again, ever!

[theaustinegalitarian]

You'd probably have to market it with the tracks in consideration. I grew up near tracks and therefore I can "filter out" such noise easily. Look at where people are coming from. If they were in a city or in one of those midwest small towns where freight trains can be heard for miles. they probably know that the noise won't be a factor after a while, but if they come out of one of those manicured condo environments, you won't be able to please them no matter what.....

[theaustinegalitarian]

Of course, that train running into that apartment bulding in Austin last week probably won't be any help, either

[shk]

Originally Posted by mko32

My husband and I live in a great location in NW Austin but our house is a fixer upper. There was a small plot of land about 5 blocks from us that a developer is now building on. Here is my dilema. The new houses are spacious with all the great amenities however, the lots are tiny. The best lot out there is directly across the street from the railroad tracks (you can't see the tracks as they are hidden by about 5 feet of trees-but you can hear it! especially the whistles). We consider the house an investment and would stay there for years, just not sure about appreciation on a home right next to the tracks. Anyone out there have any experience on buying/selling a house across from rr tracks?

Hello,
Did you eventually buy in the same neighborhood ? We are thinking of buying in same neighorhood. House is across RR track. We are nervous about RR as well.

[mko32]

Hi,

We did not buy in that neighborhood for a few different reasons. 1) the rr track-a friend who was thinking of buying there found out that there is a strong possibility that they are going to build more tracks along that stretch of the rr (double tracking it). 2) All of the bigger lots were already bought-the other lots are very small 3) Before we made a final decision on anything, the builder went into chapter 11-however, I don't know how they are doing now- they are still around and still building houses all around Austin 4) I think they are great houses, but with the economy, decided to wait a while before we bought/build. Good luck with your decision! Like I said before they are beautiful houses!

[CptnRn]

With all the plans for upgrading the rail systems around Austin. We can plan on the rail traffic on existing tracks to increase.

May 2009 Special Report: Tomorrow̢۪s Transportation (http://www.impactnews.com/round-rock-pflugerville/inside-information/135-inside-information/4210-special-report-tomorrows-transportation - broken link) This article has a really good map of the improvements. http://impactnews.com/images/stories/RPF/2009/05/30-map.jpg (broken link)

Feb. 2009 Proposed urban rail could relieve road congestion (http://impactnews.com/leander-cedar-park/inside-information/3361-proposed-urban-rail-could-relieve-road-congestion - broken link)

Sept 2008 Inter-city rail planned to run by 2012 (http://impactnews.com/southwest-austin/news/1921-inter-city-rail-planned-to-run-by-2012 - broken link)

[mko32]

Those are great links CptnRn. I had not seen a map before of the light rail. Something I'm really excited about.
The tracks in the neighborhood I'm talking about are the UP tracks, and from what I understand, it is for UP trains only and they plan to use it for staging of trains going in the opposite direction so they can pull on to the new track and wait for the other train to go by. It's a busy line as it is. It runs about 25 times a day. I'm not sure how much traffic will increase if any at all, but I had to wonder about how loud an idling freight train might be and how a busier rr track would affect house resale value.