Vol. 6, No. 1434 - - July, 2000

BUYING A HOME? 
BEWARE THE DOUBLE YELLOW LINE

by Allan R. Andrews
American Reporter Correspondent
Washington, D.C. 

CROFTON, Md.—Off and on for about two years my wife and I have been looking to relocate to a different house, largely for more convenient commutes and to be closer to where our social activity—and the  kids’—takes place.

This week we’re moving, and I want to share some of the things I’ve picked up from our home search that may not be in your realtor’s guidebook.

Most people know the three cardinal rules of real estate are location, location, location. But in one sense, that old saw isn’t much help because one’s idea of an ideal location may be someone else’s nightmare.

Having said that, I’ll offer my guidelines cautiously—as an American suburban parent. One of our rules of thumb has become: Never buy a house on a road with a double yellow line. This is a particularly good rule for persons with small children who want to be in a more rural or suburban area.

Experience has taught me as a father that any road can be dangerous. During our tenure in northern Vermont we lived on a dirt road. But that didn’t stop some drivers from kicking up wakes of dust as they busted over the hard-packed soil of the road at 60 or 70 m.p.h.

The chances of having lots of speeding traffic increase, I learned, whenever one lives on a road with a double yellow line.

I’ve learned a corollary to the double-yellow line rule: Never buy a house that is within visual distance of a traffic light.

This is one that realtors rarely let buyers in on. Think this way: Why are traffic lights installed in the first place? Because there is traffic. Logical conclusion: If one can see a traffic light, one is going to hear lots of stopping and starting as traffic comes to the light.

City dwellers can hardly escape these problems. I grew up in the middle of New York City. I learned to fall asleep with traffic racing up our street from one avenue to the next, squealing or roaring, depending on whether the light at the intersection was red or green. The loudest noises came as the cars rolled over the manhole covers in the street. Visitors to our apartment often had difficulty falling asleep. My college roommate, a Maine farm boy, confessed during a visit that he didn’t sleep well because every time a passing auto hit a manhole cover, he thought a hubcap was about to come flying through the window.

I came to the conclusion that city folk either get used to noise or they try to escape it by going higher.

One of my mother’s real estate rules was: Never rent an apartment on the ground floor.

I have a third subtle piece of advice that flies in the face of conventional suburban home buying wisdom: Be careful about putting too much stock and meaning into suburban neighborhoods with sidewalks.

Again, a certain logic guides my thinking. Why do sidewalks come into being? Because residents become leery of traffic. Thus, a neighborhood with sidewalks seems guaranteed to be a neighborhood with lots of traffic. Those places where automobiles and pedestrians have to share the roadway may actually be safer.

Many think the obvious way to beat traffic in purchasing a house is to buy on a cul-de-sac—or a dead end, as they are known in many places. It’s true, traffic in cul-de-sacs is limited generally to that street’s residents, but in most modern developments a cul-de-sac means one is going to be living on a pie-shaped piece of property with a relatively insubstantial front yard, and there’s a good chance that one’s driveway will coalesce with the neighbors’ driveways like spokes in the cul-de-sac wheel. I’ve known some cul-de-sacs that have experienced terrible drainage problems. Everything points and flows to the middle of the cul-de-sac. Cul-de-sacs become conglomerations of concrete, which is why kids love them so as pseudo-playgrounds.

One realtor told us that it was wise to note which neighborhoods had police cars and trooper’s cruisers parked in the driveways. "Policemen generally live in good neighborhoods," this realtor— a former police officer, incidentally—said with obvious conviction.

I offer my own variation on this theme: Try to buy a home that has a church for a neighbor. This is probably a holdover from my youth. In the city neighborhood where I grew up, trouble never seemed to arise within shouting distance of the parish church. Of course, I remember there always being someone at the church. That’s not necessarily true with modern churches, which are more likely to keep business hours paralleling other neighborhood operations, but having a church for a neighbor bestows an aura of peace on the streets (and sometimes lots of free guest parking space).

Finally, my wife and I have agreed on the ultimate, though rarely applied, subjective rule: Never buy a house on a street that has a name one simply cannot stand to say, write or hear pronounced.

Everyone is different in this regard, of course, but it can almost be guaranteed that you’ll never be happy in a house that is on a street whose name you are embarrassed to give to friends. I doubt many state troopers would live on Lovie Dovie Lane.

Many, who think buying a house is strictly a financial and intellectual matter, will chuckle at this last rule. They are the kind who ends up living on streets like Bunghole Boulevard or Jackass Drive.