Elementary and middle schools are great neighbors. The kiddos are gone home when I get back from work. Peace and quiet.
We looked at a house with a great view of downtown lights… it sounded great until we realized the lights in those offices would be on all night. 
Yes- deal breaker for me.
We are close to a major road (needed to get into our part of the large development and makes it convenient to the grocery store and getting out of the slow streets) and I notice the background noise when outside (we have good windows that block it inside).
Water towers are a visual blot.
There must be other houses that will be available in a much better location. You want to be able to be outdoors and I can’t imagine any house so great you would sacrifice that. Keep looking.
True brick houses are gloriously quiet.
The news helicopters above a highway event are awful.
A definite deal breaker for me. It’s the noise. It’s the pollution. It’s the possibility of a large tanker truck carrying toxic chemicals having an accident and having the chemicals enter the air.
Having a fabulous outdoor area to entertain in is essential for me.
We accidently bought closer to an interstate than we realized ( weekend house hunting trip). We were more than 1/4 mile but the constant drone of traffic was tiring. The area was heavily wooded and the freeway was not visable. That’s now on our never-ever list.
I live one house in from an interstate and hate it. Doesn’t bother spouse at all
We are the 3rd street in from the highway and we can’t imagine living any closer. When the wind blows the traffic noise in our direction instead of away (which is the more common direction), I hear it and it bakes falling asleep tougher. I’d also be concerned about emissions.
Train tracks aren’t nearly as bad, though it depends on how busy they are. Around here the highway noise is pretty much non-stop all the hours you are awake. It really makes your backyard useless. I would never ever buy a house backing up on to a highway. I’d also expect them to be much harder to sell when I was ready to leave.
Our brick house is quiet, when we have the windows closed, but when the weather is nice we like to have them open. We occasionally hear the train even though it’s almost 1/2 a mile away.
I would be bothered by the noise, emissions, and future resale difficulties.
Absolutely a deal breaker for me. Being subjected to a constant drone of noise would be highly stressful.
There’s always a chance that the highway will expand one day and you’ll lose some or all of your land.
Yes, it’s a deal breaker! And resale is horrible too.
@LakeWashington , do you care to share what highway and the approximate area? Some CC’er surely has more info.
Because they are huge eyesores.
Being that close to a highway would absolutely be a deal breaker for me.
I work next to a major highway and during my walks at lunch I am always being distracted by not only the noise of the cars and trucks just driving by, but by the honking and the slowing down and speeding up of the trucks. Don’t do it!
My friend has this set up. She has a huge backyard and then an empty lot, then a service road and the big wall. When you are outside, you can hear the highway. Inside the house is fine. This was her husband’s grandmother’s home which they remodeled. His mother lives next door in a house that will be razed when she dies. Together they own 5 lots and they will sell in a second. Many homes around them have been scraped and turned into mcmansions.
My brother also lives on this highway, plus has light rail in his yard. Doesnt bother him at all.
It was more challenging that I expected to find a house that was conveniently located but not close to train tracks or the highway. We are not far from train tracks, but I had come to enjoy hearing the train whistle every so often. Now the tracks have been abandoned, so we don’t ear the whistles anymore.
Absolutely a huge deal breaker for me. I am very noise sensitive. I would also hate looking at the noise wall at the end of my backyard. Judging from this thread, hard place to sell in the future.
Deal breaker. Absolutely.
Deal breaker for sure. When hubby and I were starting out, we rented for three months in an apartment complex next to an interstate. There was a lovely balcony and we never used it. The summer we were there was intolerable, and expensive - we ran the air all the time because we couldn’t open the windows. Horrible, horrible.