To ask your opinion on this property?

[Buddybud]

https://www.purplebricks.co.uk/property-for-sale/4-bedroom-terraced-house-duns-1091836#/

Yay or Nay?

@Buddybud

The road is back from the A1 and I think parking looks ok. How was the road/train noise when you viewed it? I like quirky layouts - that wouldn’t bother me. I like the bar, the reminder that it was once a pub. I thought the field was your garden, be useful to see size/state of the garden. Looks ok deco order, but I’m not into furnishings or a show home look. I’d take a fun, quirky house that the children can have their toys out/explore over an immaculate home.

I’d want to know more about heating system and condition of dormer. Biomass wood pellets?

The road looks dry outside the front door as if a car had been parked there, moved for photographs.

I can use Google maps and I can clearly see that, while the property is not directly on the AI, it is sandwiched between it and the trainline.

Accessing the rest of the village would involve crossing the A1 using what looks like a couple of incredibly dangerous junctions, so that realistically, it's going to involve driving across because trying to do it as a pedestrian would be a suicide mission and even driving would be bad enough.

Wouldn’t be for me - not so much to do with the house itself as the location. Limited public transport so effectively driving everywhere and a village that doesn’t seem to have so much as a corner shop let alone a pub (because the house was the pub!). I’ve lived rurally before (nearest shop approx hour round trip walk in good conditions, could be almost double in snow) -in winter, it was an absolute pain having to drive everywhere even when in relatively close proximity to an A road due to poor conditions/crashes/fallen trees etc. If it’s something you’re already used to then all good but my personal preference would be for a village with a walkable shop/pub.

It definitely has potential. Decor is pretty shocking but nothing you couldn’t live with until you changed it. It might be noisy though, being right on the road like that?

Couldn't you possibly see past that?

Blimey, I'm hyperventilating after seeing those over stuffed rooms!

Chirnside is a high crime area? I thought it was 6 houses and a dog.

Have you been to see the property OP? Grantshouse feels very "no man's land" due to the proximity of the A1. You would have to pull out on that road all the time and personally the location would be a huge no for me, there's a reason why it's cheap. The train line is the main East Coast line, and runs on the opposite side of the A1 (not behind the property as some PP have said) so that would bother me much less. If you look at Google Maps, the Cedar Cafe is close by, and is one of the main truck stops on the A1, so has multiple lorries parked up day and night along that road that curves round to the A1 from the cafe. Chirnside isn't exactly a hotbed of serious crime but has tended to have an issue with teenagers hanging about. I would avoid living near the village centre due to that.

Too dark. Ironically the lightest rooms are the bathroom and the sloped ceiling bedroom - neither are rooms you'll be in for long!

Nay. Too close to the A1 and you're looking at the road and all those bins every time you walk out the front door.

It’s over £270k on the Scottish system so could realistically sell for over £300. It’s cheap for the amount of house because it’s in the middle of nowhere! Ok, it’s close to the A1 but that’s your only transport connection and it’s really too far to commute into Edinburgh.
it’s a no from me. The layout is weird and needs a lot of remodelling to make it liveable.

Well that's a mixed bag isn't it? One half done up to within an inch of its life and the other half needing a refurb (possibly - they don't actually show the second kitchen).

The road would be the killer for me though. On Google Street View the pavement outside the house is wider than it looks on the photos, but I'd be fed up, particularly if I had kids in a buggy, having to potentially contend with a car parked right outside my front door.

It is set back from the A1, but not by much. The road noise would be pretty loud I imagine. On Street View once you go on to the A1 there are two big HGV's in the picture going each way and, having lived on a busy road as a child, I can assure you those things bloody rattle!

Sorry but I think it's hideous!

We have a similar house on the end of terrace that was once a couple op. I think its an ugly monstrosity . No parking, soulless. You could buy something much nicer for the asking price.

It looks like a sound house. I'd want to change some wallpaper, remove the bar and the carpet in the room with the bar. The biggest things for me is that I'd need more natural light, so more windows. Other than the parking and windows, the rest are straight forward cosmetic changes.

I should say I used to live locally OP and still have family in the area.

I wouldn't buy a house on a main road, the A1 will be busy. Pollution not only shortens lives but diminishes quality in later years. We can't avoid all pollution etc but I wouldn't purposely put myself and family in that position

This is a good point. Research also indicates a greater chance of dementia if you live on or near a busy main road.

The garden is brilliant - what space! But it is on an absolute death trap of a road and I wouldn't live in that location if you paid me. Sorry!

The building itself looks OK but I'd need to gut the place and make it more home-like, less sterile - whoever decorated it looks like they have no taste and randomly googled designs to make the property saleable with no consideration for whether it would actually look like a nice place to live in.

But that's a minor problem really, other cheap properties of similar size will be definite fixer-uppers, this doesn't need redoing immediately, just before it drives the new owner insane.

Yes, I had in mind more respiratory disease (especially for children who's lungs haven't fully formed), but dementia is also a worry with pollution.

I see loads of potential here! I'm always drawn to houses that I can make my own.

Both horrible. Cheap as chips though!