Location Location Location

An old adage says the three most important things in real estate are location, location, and location.  Our house is nice but the location is not.  And that's a real bummer.  We live near the top of a hill on a pretty busy street.  At the top of the hill, the street dead ends into a T and traffic must either turn left or right.  There is no traffic signal at this intersection -- just a one-way stop sign.  Traffic on the cross street has the right of way and does not have to stop.  As a result, traffic on our street is often backed up down the hill.  Most nights I have to sit in this traffic before I can pull into my own driveway.

Separately, there are four different buses that stop right in front of our house.  Each comes once or twice an hour.  When it rains, people wait under our covered porch so they don't get wet.  They leave so much trash on the sidewalk (cigarettes, coffee cups, soda bottles, general trash) that the landlord has been forced to hire somebody to come and clean it up on a daily basis.  Thankfully that cost is built into our rent.  On Saturday nights, the drunks get off the bus and make lots of noise.  For a rental property, it will suffice.  But I wouldn't want to live in this house for the rest of my life.

Here is a photo of the bus stop taken from the guest bedroom on the 2nd floor.