LIRR, airports, busy roads no longer put off homebuyers, experts say

Standing on his front porch in Holbrook, Dheeraj Ramchandani carries on a conversation, unmindful of the sounds of rumbling, bells and whistles a few feet away. As a software engineer who works in New York City most of the week, Ramchandani sees this as a plus: Living alongside train tracks.

"I think for us getting this house, proximity to the rail station was more important for us rather than the noise," said Ramchandani, 36.

The house is walking distance to the Long Island Rail Road station in Ronkonkoma, and about 3 miles from MacArthur Airport. Ramchandani and his wife bought the house in 2023, and he said they've gotten used to the noise. The house is insulated enough that he often doesn't hear the Greenport-bound trains passing, which happens four or five times a day, he estimated.

"Some people may want it very quiet, and they don't need a train as often as I do," he said.

Ramchandani is among many recent homebuyers on Long Island who have looked past or found the positives in factors that once may have been "dealbreakers": Proximity to trains, airports or busy roads.

For the buyers now overlooking things that once would have caused them to shuffle past the listing agent and out the front door of an open house — be it the noise of the neighborhood or the cars speeding by their potential home — there's a big reason why. The current inventory presents a lack of options, local real estate agents said. But living by a transportation hub can raise some environmental concerns, one expert said.

"Mains, trains, planes, whatever it may be, the buyers are overlooking those things because in my opinion, we're not just in an inventory shortage right now: We're in an inventory crisis," said Gail Carillo, a broker with Coldwell Banker American Homes.

"We really don't have a lot of housing, particularly in a first-time homebuyer market," she added.

Location-based qualms have gone by the wayside, especially since the pandemic, real estate agents said.

"A long time ago or in a different market, a main road might be a challenge because buyers had choices," Carillo said. "Now if they need a home, they're like, 'What main road?' They just need a home."

Living off the LIE, Route 112

"The only way to compensate for those kinds of things in the past was to lower the price," Carillo said.

Now, these types of houses are often flying off the market for more than their asking prices.

Hal Rovner, a real estate agent with Exit Realty Liberty in Riverhead, recently listed a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house totaling 1,440 square feet in Patchogue for $499,988.

There were about 50 people at the first open house, and that was all it took. One week (and about 15 offers) later, they were in contract, Rovner said. They closed in August for $550,000.

"We had it listed at a desirable price point," he said. "So I think that was something that was very attractive because it's been very challenging for buyers to find something at this price point."

The would-be challenge of the property was its location, right off Route 112. It was a couple houses down from a convenience store, with an Italian eatery on the opposite side of the same street. The neighborhood also includes a Burger King and several auto service stores, less than a mile away.

"That part of 112 does get a lot of traffic," Rovner said. "When we had the open house and it was so busy, people were parking in an adjacent parking lot at the strip mall."

That's when prospective buyers realized how tight the area was, with several businesses close to the property. "I did get some of that feedback," he added.

Rovner believes it would have taken longer for this house to sell pre-COVID. But in general, homes located on busier roads are becoming less of an obstacle for a sale, he said — specifically double-yellow lined roads that have a stop sign to slow traffic.

Larry McKenna, a real estate agent for Signature Premier Properties in Ronkonkoma, said it's hard to avoid that while house-hunting here: "On Long Island, there are thousands of homes on double-yellow lines. It's a hindrance for some, but there are still a lot of people that will accept that."

There's no house that's completely negative. In a case like this one, the positives are that if you're a commuter, you're right there. And the proximity of that house to the train station and the airport, as well.

— Larry McKenna, Signature Premier Properties agent

McKenna sold a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home earlier this year on a Long Island Expressway service road in Ronkonkoma. It was listed at $499,000, and sold for $515,000.

"It had a little bit of curb appeal," McKenna said. "It was a little bit pushed back off the road, and it had a full basement."

But McKenna said people tend to speed on that road, and admitted it was a drawback for some. Still, it sold within a month.

"There's no house that's completely negative," he said. "In a case like this one, the positives are that if you're a commuter, you're right there. And the proximity of that house to the train station and the airport, as well."

Sometimes, amenities within the home outweigh its surroundings, said real estate agent Alex Goldenberg, of Howard Hanna Coach. His four-bedroom, three-bathroom listing in Nesconset, sitting on a 0.33-acre lot, was on a cut-through street near Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove. It sold in July for $845,000 — $20,000 over the asking price. The property featured sleek stonework and a "parklike backyard," Goldenberg said.

"If the house was situated on a cul-de-sac or a quiet block, it would probably be three times the amount of offers I received," he said.

Last year, Tommy Panebianco, of Realty Connect USA, sold a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house on a 0.31-acre lot for $575,000 on a busy street in Central Islip, a half-mile from the Islandia Shopping Center. It only took a couple of weeks to sell, which Panebianco attributes to recent interior renovations.

"I tell people that I work with: If this house meets 85% of your criteria as a whole, go for it," he said. "You're never going to find something that meets 100% of your criteria, unless you're building a new construction and you have a blank check — that's a different story. You'll get to 100% on your own, and make it a home once it's yours."

LIRR next door, MacArthur planes overhead

Real estate agent Moe Soliman, of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate in Massapequa, brought up another deal-breaker that's gone by the wayside in the current market (at least for some buyers): Swimming pools.

"If you had a swimming pool in your house, it could either hurt you or help you," Soliman said. "Fifty percent of buyers wanted a pool, 50% didn't want a pool. Now, everyone wants a pool, especially after COVID."

His listing in Massapequa Park sold for $695,000 in June. The three-bedroom, two-bathroom property was 0.2 miles from the community's LIRR station. Much like swimming pools, the noise was divisive among interested buyers.

"Of course you'd hear the train coming in the nighttime, afternoon time, but some people mind it, some people don't mind it," he said.

The bigger issue: A one-hour street parking limit in front of the house, to ward off commuters. But for the homeowner, that also means being unable to park your car for more than an hour there, Soliman said.

"But other people said, 'You know what? I only have one car and there's a driveway, I don't care,'" he added. "So like anything else, you have the negative and the positive."

And the positives here were the price point and the square footage, he said.

Kate Works, a real estate agent with Compass in Huntington, recently sold a property in Ronkonkoma for $665,000, 3 miles from MacArthur Airport and even closer to the hamlet's LIRR station. The previous owners saw the location as a selling point, Works said.

"It was a really nice neighborhood," Works said. "It had wide streets, the houses were well maintained, and you don't feel that you're in the middle of a train station and an airport."

The 1,635-square-foot house contained three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It garnered eight offers, after one open house that lasted just two hours, Works said.

Kristen Trepiccione, of Holbrook, lives a couple of miles from MacArthur Airport, but is not in a direct flight path, she said. She's lived there for most of her life, and is back after buying her parents' home. Although Trepiccione said she "hardly ever" travels through that airport, she still sees it as a selling point for buyers in the area.

"I think they'll still move in," said Trepiccione, who works at Holbrook Diner.

The neighborhood is "quaint," she added — everyone knows each other, and there's a playground for the little ones. As for its future, Trepiccione, 51, doesn't think her own kids, all in their 20s, could be homeowners in this area right now.

"I worry about them being able to afford to buy a house someday. Even the rent's super expensive," she said.

Sean Manning, owner of OverSouth Real Estate in Sayville, sold a home in this neighborhood in 2022, for $555,000. The house featured five bedrooms and two bathrooms, coming to a total of 2,112 square feet. It was about a mile and a half from the airport.

"I didn't look at the airport as a tremendous negative," he said. "But buyers should do their own homework on the pros and cons to living close to transportation hubs."

Homebuyers should also be mindful of the types of pollution that can occur in neighborhoods near these hubs, said Sara Hamideh, an associate professor in the school of marine and atmospheric sciences at Stony Brook University.

"The irregularity of the noise is maybe the biggest concern for putting residential developments next to these facilities," said Hamideh. "Certain age groups — people who are older, families with younger kids and babies — would suffer more with these irregular and consistent patterns of extra noise in their lives."

And there's more to think about than just the airplanes flying overhead. Around an airport, depending on its size, residents could be dealing with "emissions that come from storage facilities and the ground transportation that is linked to airport activities. That is now an extra burden not only on the health of people who live close to the airport, but also on the wear and tear and quality of the infrastructure that they also have to rely on," she said.

Hamideh, who has taught courses on environmental planning and whose research focuses on disaster resilience, said there is one potential deal-breaker that buyers should not overlook: The flooding history of a home. She recommends that homebuyers check to see how quickly their desired neighborhood floods when it rains, which is on many Long Islanders' minds after the recent flooding of Suffolk County's North Shore.

She offered similar advice for moving near a transportation hub: "If I were considering a move like that, I would check out those neighborhoods more than once, monitoring activities around those neighborhoods during peak hours, to see if I can tolerate it."

'A different mentality'

Several real estate agents agree that homebuyers coming to Long Island from New York City aren't shying away from transportation hubs or busy streets.

"They have no problem with living on a main road," said Soliman. "The whole neighborhood's changing, because people have a different mentality. So the city style is coming here more."

And many of these homebuyers prioritize an easy commute during their home search, like Ramchandani did.

"That actually can be a purchasing point, because we do have so many people right now coming to live farther out east, and they're coming from Manhattan and especially from Queens," said Christine Jansson, a broker with Realty Maintained. "So sometimes, closer train stations and airports are more important to them. Being close to a commuter hub — Deer Park, Babylon, Ronkonkoma — can definitely be a plus."

But it really depends on the buyer, said Works — and whether they're ready to give up their city-going lifestyle altogether.

"For some people it's, 'Absolutely not, we're moving out of the city because we want peace and quiet.' And then other people are like, 'This is great, we can live right next to the train.' "

— Kate Works, Compass agent

Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin

"I would say it's still 50/50," she said. "For some people it's, 'Absolutely not, we're moving out of the city because we want peace and quiet.' And then other people are like, 'This is great, we can live right next to the train.' "

Ramchandani said he and his wife had considered Hicksville and Plainview while house-hunting. After looking at four or five homes, this was the first one they put an offer on — and it was quickly accepted.

After only a month of searching, Ramchandani feels that he and his wife got lucky.

"This is our first house," he said. "So we just like it as it is.

By Rachel Weiss

rachel.weiss@newsday.com@RachMWeiss

Rachel Weiss joined Newsday in 2016. As a real estate/living multimedia reporter, Rachel writes feature stories and contributes to and appears in on-camera video packages. She was the lead reporter on Newsday’s LI Acts of Kindness series.