The Real Deal

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Buyers sacrifice location for large homes

Some buyers have found large homes in their price range because of the properties' undesirable locations. Kathleen Hulser, a curator for the New York Historical Society, bought a four-bedroom summer house in Cornwall Bridge, Conn., for $255,000. However, about 20 feet away from her house are train tracks, where a freight train passes every morning, and next door to the home used to be a Superfund site. Hulser said the train is no worse than the air and noise pollution in Harlem, where she lives during the week. And Eridania Diaz bought a crumbling 10-room home with a wrap-around porch, fireplaces and spiral staircase for $350,000 in 2004. The catch is that Diaz had to spend almost as much as the sale price to renovate the home, and it sits in the Bronx neighborhood Highbridge, one of the city's most unsafe areas, according to the police department. Diaz, a landlord, recently put the home on the market since the downturn has left many of her tenants unable to pay their rent, and she plans to move into a smaller home in the neighborhood when she sells. [NYT]