LOS ANGELES (AP) – Robert Leviton’s loudest neighbor is a 12-lane freeway.
The busy stretch of highway that runs alongside his townhouse complex is visible from his north-facing windows. The drone of passing motorists is audible throughout. He can even hear a muffled version of it when his windows are shut.
“I was a little bit worried about how close it is to the freeway, but it really doesn’t bother me,” said Leviton. He paid $666,000 for his townhouse, more than triple the U.S. median home sales price. But it allows him to live in a new home within biking distance of his work and it was cheaper than other homes he considered.
Living near highways, train tracks and other urban eyesores has long been an unfortunate fact of life for residents of big, crowded cities around the world, including in tightly-packed cities in the U.S. Now the rising popularity of urban living across the country, along with a shortage of land in desirable locations, has made these dingy corners of cities hot properties for developers and home buyers, despite loud and ugly neighbors and the potential health hazard of living closer to pollution.
“Land is so scarce that the properties that are available for residential development tend to be those fringe properties,” said Tim Barden, senior vice president at Land Advisors Organization, a national land brokerage. “We generally see multiple offers on all of our listings.”