QLD Buying a house on a busy street?

I have seen a couple of inner city houses that appear to be on busy streets, however only 2 lane streets, how do I determine just how busy they are (I am interstate) is it a hard and fast rule not to buy such houses? Location is Brisbane city.

 

On the other hand, what usually gets rezoned first?

 

Personally I wouldn't buy on a really busy street as it always comes back to haunt you come valuation and especially sale time. The only exception for me is if you are getting the place at exceptional value to more than make up for the busy street or you have add value plans for it with a clear and confident profit margin anticipated.

A good comparison I like to make is look at similar houses in the area (on quieter streets) and their sold prices then compare to your busy street. See if there is a clear gap in prices. You need to compare apples with apples as much as possible though. Also, ring a few REAs in the area and ask about the street, noise, how busy, affect values etc. Then put it all together and you'll have a good idea.

 

This was the property (now under contract):

982 Stanley Street East, East Brisbane, Qld 4169

 

It was defined as:
cr2 character residential (infill housing), meaning
In the CR2 Infill housing zone precinct, existing dwellings built in 1946 or before are to be retained, and any extensions or renovations must maintain the original parts of the dwelling. New multiple dwellings of up to two storeys can be developed between or behind character houses.
had also very poor Cg for the last 10 years when it was bought.
I usually stay away from busy street as it is usually a buyer objection, less people interested and expecting a discount! These are not part of my strategy for investing....

 

Thanks, it did seem to be at a discount, most on the main Street seem to be at a discount of at least 100k, at some point surely the discount becomes worthwhile?

 

IMHO unlikely discount becomes worthwhile down in time, it will still be buyer's objection, even worse the busy road with population increase may become busier....
Just ask yourself how many people, given this choice would like to live on busy street?
The issue for me is to appeal to many not just few, in case I need to sell and pull out of the market.
Why put yourself in this category, of hoping things will change? I realize I cannot change the circumstances but I CAN CHANGE, change my strategy where I buy.
If I were you and you have time in the market venture further out and buy in middle rings, with nice block of land, perhaps even a corner block, but need to do the research first...

 

What I meant was if the discount is 100k and the area goes up ~20% for eg. Then you can still sell with the discount a d made a profit, as in the discount is already built in

 

But why do you assume this...? It is not automatic 20% increase, the increase may be less for this property since on the main road, or 20% is larger discount than say a 15% increase on a different property. Also much harder to sell so may need to be discounted further, what about rentals, will it be easier to rent out too or will you need to give again a discount. Much more to consider than just $ value!

 

I guess my point is at what point does the discount become good value make up for it being on a main road, there has to be a point, for e.g maybe a 10% discount doesn't make up for it, but there is a point, eg. What if the discount was 50%?

 

The busy road problem is that if you buy it cheap then you will also need to sell it cheap. In a tight market thats going to be far harder and need a far bigger cut than a good market. It may not even sell. Buyers will just walk away - Most of them. And if property doubles then the discounts going to likely double. If property is illiquid the only way to attract a buyer in a forced sale is a low price. A real low price. Desperation selling.

Same applies to run down and defective properties. Fix it up and you can make up the discount perhaps.

 

I give up! To me NEVER, I don't think just about $, just monetary terms.
Few issues of concern to me are:
- Poor quality and turnover of tenants (who wants to live and rent on busy road?)
- Discount of rent
- Noise issues
- Further widening of the road, if main road already
- Do not wish to gamble an hope one day value will be there
- Resale value lower, in case I need to pull out the funds
- This is also heritage listed so renovation restrictions and more costly

You see it is against my investment strategy, as I concentrate where owner occupiers would like to live, so simple for me, if I would not like to live there, I do not buy there - that's how simple it is for me!

 

Check out the Waze mobile app at different times of the day. It will give you a pretty good idea of the traffic going through there. It's mostly used by Uber drivers to confirm best routes etc.

 

Yikes - that's one of the ugliest properties I have ever seen. Add south-facing and one-way street and it has little going for it apart from its size (house, not land) and proximity to the CBD. Sold for $650 k on 8/5/19. Better them than me.

 

A little ‘first look’ handy for interstate folks: on the brisbane city plan you can use the overlay ‘District Road’ and ‘Suburban Road’ that will show a lot of the rat runs, roads with buses and busier roads that aren’t obviously arterials. Occasionally a rat run won’t be shown but its handy as a initial discriminator.

 

Horrible unless it’s a development site