Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

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gbill2004
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Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by gbill2004 »

We are considering making an offer on a home in the Royalwood community of Winnipeg. The only thing is it's about 100 meters from a train track. You can't really see it from the house we are looking at, but you could likely hear it. The people across the cove would have the train track basically in their backyard. I did some research and CP rail said the train comes 4-6 times per day, and the whistle does not blow, as the city requested it to be silenced. We spoke to 2 neighbors on the street and they say its a non issue to them; one whose backyard faces the tracks, and one neighbour who would be in the same situation as us, right beside the home we are looking at. The city has the home assessed at $457, and the listed price is $460. Has a massive backyard which we love and is on a nice quiet street. Love, love the house too.

Only other issue is that my GF and I both take the bus to work, and the closest bust stop is approximately a 12-15 minute walk away. For us, 10 minutes was sort of our limit, but 12 minutes is right on the edge of that.

Your thoughts? Concern isn't so much with us,. and I think we could deal with the train. Main concern is the resale impacts.
Last edited by gbill2004 on 24 Aug 2016 07:10, edited 1 time in total.
izzy
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by izzy »

gbill2004 wrote:We are considering making an offer on a home in the Royalwood community of Winnipeg. The only thing is it's about 100 meters from a train track. You can't really see it form the house we are looking at, but you could likely hear it. The people across the cove would have the train track basically in their backyard. I did some research and CP rail said the train comes 4-6 times per day, and the whistle does not blow, as the city requested it to be silenced. We spoke to 2 neighbors on the street and they say its a non issue to them; one whose backyard faces the tracks, and one neighbour who would be in the same situation as us, right beside the home we are looking at. The city has the home assessed at $457, and the listed price is $460. Has a massive backyard which we love and is on a nice quiet street. Love, love the house too.

Only other issue is that my GF and I both take the bust to work, and the closest bust stop is approximately a 12-15 minute walk away. For us, 10 minutes was sort of our limit, but 12 minutes is right on the edge of that.

Your thoughts? Concern isn't so much with us,. and I think we could deal with the train. Main concern is the resale impacts.
Royalwood is a very pretty area which we have looked at in the past.Bear in mind that sooner or later the railway will likely bypass Winnipeg .If that happens and you are still living there a significant bump in value is possible.If you think you will live there a long time there is significant upside potential but its a gamble.The railway crosses Wellington Crescent too,close to Assiniboine Park, but I doubt it has much effect on house values around there, Unless its a new build you have a good argument to negotiate the price down too,
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by gbill2004 »

izzy wrote:
gbill2004 wrote:We are considering making an offer on a home in the Royalwood community of Winnipeg. The only thing is it's about 100 meters from a train track. You can't really see it form the house we are looking at, but you could likely hear it. The people across the cove would have the train track basically in their backyard. I did some research and CP rail said the train comes 4-6 times per day, and the whistle does not blow, as the city requested it to be silenced. We spoke to 2 neighbors on the street and they say its a non issue to them; one whose backyard faces the tracks, and one neighbour who would be in the same situation as us, right beside the home we are looking at. The city has the home assessed at $457, and the listed price is $460. Has a massive backyard which we love and is on a nice quiet street. Love, love the house too.

Only other issue is that my GF and I both take the bust to work, and the closest bust stop is approximately a 12-15 minute walk away. For us, 10 minutes was sort of our limit, but 12 minutes is right on the edge of that.

Your thoughts? Concern isn't so much with us,. and I think we could deal with the train. Main concern is the resale impacts.
Royalwood is a very pretty area which we have looked at in the past.Bear in mind that sooner or later the railway will likely bypass Winnipeg .If that happens and you are still living there a significant bump in value is possible.If you think you will live there a long time there is significant upside potential but its a gamble.The railway crosses Wellington Crescent too,close to Assiniboine Park, but I doubt it has much effect on house values around there, Unless its a new build you have a good argument to negotiate the price down too,
Thanks and good points. It's not a new build...it's 12 years old. How much lower do you think we could negotiate down?
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by ockham »

We have friends living 100-150 metres from the CP mainline. When in their backyard, I wonder how they bear the noise and racket....... yet they honestly don't notice. It's simply part of the landscape for them.

(I live on a rural acreage. There's a lot of noise and racket in urban settings that go unnoticed by city dwellers.)
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by Spudd »

We live about 500m from the train tracks, with lots of neighbourhood between us and them. We still hear the trains. It's not really loud enough to be bothersome but it's definitely audible. I would think at 100m you would hear them quite well, especially if there's nothing blocking you from them. Whether it would bother you a lot is another question. You could lurk about in the area until a train comes by and see what it's like. Unfortunately they don't publish freight train schedules due to security concerns (at least this is what I heard from my husband, who once contacted the train company because he wanted to film a train going by for a movie).
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by like_to_retire »

gbill2004 wrote:Thanks and good points. It's not a new build...it's 12 years old. How much lower do you think we could negotiate down?
I would think that the price of the homes in the area would have the train situation already baked in.

Your resale ability would be a concern in that the train situation would limit the market, but there would always be people who would take the time to investigate the effects of the train noise (such as yourself).

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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by MarketLost »

ockham wrote:We have friends living 100-150 metres from the CP mainline. When in their backyard, I wonder how they bear the noise and racket....... yet they honestly don't notice. It's simply part of the landscape for them.

(I live on a rural acreage. There's a lot of noise and racket in urban settings that go unnoticed by city dwellers.)
I actually grew up at about the same distance in London, and you really don't notice it. In fact, it's actually quite comforting after a while.

The really strange thing is that even though I moved away before I was 10, I still find that there are times that I can still feel the vibrations at night even thought the nearest tracks are at least 3KMs away.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by gbill2004 »

So we finally got to be at the house when a train goes by. The train was actually fairly quiet when passing by and didn't really bother me. The train whistle is silenced at the crossing near the home we are looking at. However, we could hear the whistle from a crossing about 1.5 kilometers away. Not a big deal during the day, but could be an issue while sleeping at night. I'm going to call CP rail to see if maybe the whistle is silenced if/when the train comes in the middle of the night.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by Lucy2001 »

I cannot fathom this post. In what world would someone pay $500G for a house 100 meters from a train track? Your china will rattle, the walls and foundation will crack, you'll worry about the kids and the pets, you won't ever be able to sell the place. There are thousands of houses in Winnipeg, find a nice house within 10 minutes of a bus stop (seems to be that's your number one priority that you're actually ignoring) and move on from the "wow" house by the tracks. You can renovate yourself to "wow" pretty easily, find the worst house in the best neighborhood and build something you'll love forever.
Wouldn't even consider it.
Ever.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by gbill2004 »

Lucy2001 wrote:I cannot fathom this post. In what world would someone pay $500G for a house 100 meters from a train track? Your china will rattle, the walls and foundation will crack, you'll worry about the kids and the pets, you won't ever be able to sell the place. There are thousands of houses in Winnipeg, find a nice house within 10 minutes of a bus stop (seems to be that's your number one priority that you're actually ignoring) and move on from the "wow" house by the tracks. You can renovate yourself to "wow" pretty easily, find the worst house in the best neighborhood and build something you'll love forever.
Wouldn't even consider it.
Ever.
Please don't criticize my question. I'm trying to make a decision so am getting all perspectives. We stood by when he train went by and it's very quiet when passing. When in the house you can't notice it. The house doesn't back out onto the tracks, the houses across the street do. Nothing shook inside the house or anything. We love the area, it's on a quiet beautiful cul-de-sac and on a huge lot which we love and is very rare. Other homes we are looking at are near a highway or busier streets so you hear traffic. No way for pets or kids to get to tracks as there's people houses across the street blocking it, along with fences.

I'm not leaning either way right now. Just gathering information. Asking price is $460. Appraised by city at $457. If we can get it for $420-430 might consider it.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by Just a Guy »

Appraisals are just someone's best guess at what they think someone else is willing to pay. It's really a meaningless number. The real value of a house is what someone is willing to pay for it, period.

How long has the house been on the market? How despirate are the people to sell? How high are you willing to offer? Is anyone else interested in the property? These are the only real factors in the price. The more information about the seller's situation you can find out, the better your position is in the negotiations.

If you want to get it for $420ish, offer something significantly lower...maybe $395 and see what happens. They could say yes, especially if it's been listed a long time, but they'll probably counter offer.

Don't let your realtor know what price you want to pay.

This is the time when they are about to get paid, most realtors, even your own, will put pressure on you to close the sale. They don't care if you overpay, or get a deal, it doesn't really affect their pay much, but they do care that the deal gets done so that they actually get paid. No deal, no pay. They understand this part implicitly. Let the pressure fall on the seller. If you tell your realtor you'd be happy at a price, they'll push you to at least that price, if not higher just to close.

This is the part of the deal where you need to figure out who's going to blink first. Don't show your cards to anyone else, Don't trust anyone else's advice.

Also, be willing to walk away from the table for a while at least. If they reject your offer, and there are no other bids, you can afford to walk away for a bit...let them stew on it, and then come back in a week.

If you've fallen in love with the place though, you've already lost. You need to be able to walk away to get the best possible price.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by kcowan »

Just a Guy wrote:If you've fallen in love with the place though, you've already lost. You need to be able to walk away to get the best possible price.
All good advice. We always bought the second or third place that we had decided on when the first ones did not go through. In one case, we had to threaten the agent with finding another one because she would not present our low offer. We got the place for $500 over our stink bid. The sellers hated us. But it was a marriage breakup so there was lots of hate to go around.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by gbill2004 »

Just a Guy wrote:Appraisals are just someone's best guess at what they think someone else is willing to pay. It's really a meaningless number. The real value of a house is what someone is willing to pay for it, period.

How long has the house been on the market? How despirate are the people to sell? How high are you willing to offer? Is anyone else interested in the property? These are the only real factors in the price. The more information about the seller's situation you can find out, the better your position is in the negotiations.

If you want to get it for $420ish, offer something significantly lower...maybe $395 and see what happens. They could say yes, especially if it's been listed a long time, but they'll probably counter offer.

Don't let your realtor know what price you want to pay.

This is the time when they are about to get paid, most realtors, even your own, will put pressure on you to close the sale. They don't care if you overpay, or get a deal, it doesn't really affect their pay much, but they do care that the deal gets done so that they actually get paid. No deal, no pay. They understand this part implicitly. Let the pressure fall on the seller. If you tell your realtor you'd be happy at a price, they'll push you to at least that price, if not higher just to close.

This is the part of the deal where you need to figure out who's going to blink first. Don't show your cards to anyone else, Don't trust anyone else's advice.

Also, be willing to walk away from the table for a while at least. If they reject your offer, and there are no other bids, you can afford to walk away for a bit...let them stew on it, and then come back in a week.

If you've fallen in love with the place though, you've already lost. You need to be able to walk away to get the best possible price.
Great advice. You and I think alike. It's been on the market 5 weeks now. I'm not working with an agent; I prefer it that was as you can often use that in negotiating as the sellers agent doesn't need to split the commission if I have no agent. I haven't fallen in love with the house and am prepared to walk away. I'm now trying to determine:

1. If I'm going to make an offer
2. What is my initial offer
3. The point where I walk away

There's no other offers and I don't think anyone else is interested at the moment, but that can always change in a split second. House could be sold tomorrow.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by BRIAN5000 »

At the closest point, we are 1.5km from railway tracks and 2.5km from an intermodal station we still hear the trains. In summer with the windows open they sometimes wake us at night, not a real big problem and your not near an intermodal but we are a long ways away. Some pretty nice houses only 500m away had wished they hadn't bought, took them awhile to get used to the noise I was told.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by gobsmack »

You may not object to the way the train tracks are being used today but who knows how they will be used tomorrow? Could the traffic on the tracks increase? Could it be scheduled to run mostly through the night? You probably won't have much of a say on these things.

Here where I live, there is some talk about using an abandoned section of train tracks in order to possibly expand a light-rail public transportation system. Apparently, the main advantage in this case is that the tracks are already there so there is no need to run through expensive approval processes, which would have included consulting with the people living in the area.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by Spudd »

One question - when you heard the train go by, was it a Via train or a freight train? The Via trains are quite quiet and the freight trains are quite loud, at least around here.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by kcowan »

My cousin lived in Concord back when it was rural. His large property was adjacent to the tracks at the rear. He built a high wooden fence about half way back.

I stayed there for a week. The first night I heard the trains and then I never heard them again.

I have a friend who lives near an airport. When we are there for dinner, we hear the planes. They do not.

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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by Flaccidsteele »

Just a Guy wrote:Appraisals are just someone's best guess at what they think someone else is willing to pay. It's really a meaningless number. The real value of a house is what someone is willing to pay for it, period.
I understand what you're saying, but an appraisal not completely meaningless.

For my US real estate purchases I require the sale to be contingent upon appraisal (and inspection). I have my appraiser provide their valuation based on "investment decision" (as opposed to market value or conventional comparable or refinance) using going rent as a factor. There have been a few times when I have tied up the property for a month and then used the lower appraisal to reduce the purchase price further (since the seller doesn't want to lose a month and restart the entire selling process).

Obviously has a higher chance of working in weaker markets.

Apologies for going OT.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by Just a Guy »

My dream job, would be a bank appraiser...people buy the house, you go in, look around, make sure it's not an obvious scam and then give your "appraisal" +/- $10k. Collect a couple hundred dollars and go on to the next one.

He OP was talking about city assessments I believe when it came to the appraised value. These can be all over the place, I actually know some people who've appealed to get the value higher thinking it'll sell better...pretty stupid in my opinion.

Anyway, if you can, pull up the listing history and see how the price has changed over 5 years. If it's really been 5 years, that's a pretty good indicator that the house has been highly overpriced, regardless of any appraisals or assessments (unless they just dropped the price significantly).

My bet is, he price of the house may be a lot lower yet though. 5 years is a very long time. Heck, six months is a very long time and a sign it's priced to high.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by OhGreatGuru »

It's kinda like living near an airport. Unless you are right under the glide path, most people get used to the noise and don't notice it after awhile. So it can be quite subjective. You would be better to ask neighbours than rely on your own first impressions.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by Flaccidsteele »

Just a Guy wrote:OP was talking about city assessments I believe when it came to the appraised value. These can be all over the place, I actually know some people who've appealed to get the value higher thinking it'll sell better...pretty stupid in my opinion.
True. I agree.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by gbill2004 »

OhGreatGuru wrote:It's kinda like living near an airport. Unless you are right under the glide path, most people get used to the noise and don't notice it after awhile. So it can be quite subjective. You would be better to ask neighbours than rely on your own first impressions.
I've already spoken to 5 neighbors.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by gbill2004 »

Spudd wrote:One question - when you heard the train go by, was it a Via train or a freight train? The Via trains are quite quiet and the freight trains are quite loud, at least around here.
It's a CP freight line. Only freight trains pass on that line.
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by flywaysuzy »

I have a CN track on the eastern property line. I have noticed that they don't vibrate the mirror leaning against a wall as they had in the past. Some trains used to haul coal I remember and I don't see that any more. Might be the heavier the load, the more vibration. Also it may depend some on the substrate composition where you are located.

I have kept the whistle on as I use the whistles from farther along as notice that a train is coming while I am riding the horse...

In a dry spell, they watch those tracks like hawks for fires. :) That maybe is more of a plus in rural areas!
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Re: Buying home near train tracks in Winnipeg?

Post by gsp_ »

Just a Guy wrote:Anyway, if you can, pull up the listing history and see how the price has changed over 5 years. If it's really been 5 years, that's a pretty good indicator that the house has been highly overpriced, regardless of any appraisals or assessments (unless they just dropped the price significantly).

My bet is, he price of the house may be a lot lower yet though. 5 years is a very long time. Heck, six months is a very long time and a sign it's priced to high.
He said 5 weeks, not years.
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