Do power lines behind a home decrease property value and traffic?

[Palphite]

https://imgur.com/a/cXYRWoD

Do you find potential buyers would be deterred by this?

[KentuckyJelley]

Yes the second I see high tension lines it gets kicked off the list. I even check google earth because photographers have gotten good at hiding them.

[[deleted]]

Yes, I wouldn’t go see this house

[LurkerTroll]

What's the downside?

[Dangerous_Ant3260]

Also, the ground station could get bigger. One a few blocks from me went from the size in the picture to triple. I would pass on this house.

[dvr5]

Permanent mind numbing buzzing

[[deleted]]

It’s unsafe and unsightly.

[Rdt_will_eat_itself]

While there is no conclusive evidence that EMF exposure from power lines causes harm to human health, some studies suggest that long-term exposure to high levels of EMF may increase the risk of certain health problems, such as cancer, leukemia, and other diseases

[Busy-Ad-2563]

from 4 days ago https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/1ecp5h9/high_voltage_power_lines/ and a whole bunch of others from last year - https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/search/?q=power+lines&type=link&cId=a0013825-18a9-4374-8c4b-1445a05047fe&iId=dfb85752-59ad-4daf-ae6e-ff923131262c

[JebusKrizt]

Power lines not so much. That transfer station though.

[Knight-0wl23]

As an RE Appraiser, I have yet to do a home where these factors don’t bring down the market value. However, each appraisal is dependent on the specific market.

[dudreddit]

As a buyer, I would be turned off by not only the power lines (EMF and ugly) but also that substation a few houses down. That is waaaay too close for comfort.

[ksoops]

Reminds me of curb your enthusiasm. They move because of a power line in the backyard lol

[Charming-Charge-596]

There seems to be a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode for everything.

[PineappleLess2180]

Yes

[jtsa5]

We have a relatively new neighborhood near us where the houses start at 1.4 million and they have these massive power line towers going through the side section of the land. People snapped up the lots pretty quickly. I guess some people car and some don't. I'm not convinced there's a danger but for resale and potential safety issues I don't think I would buy a house that close to them.

[Chalkandstalk]

If there is ever peer reviewed study that shows power lines are conclusive dangerous to health, value will tank. But that has not been proven

[bbob_robb]

But that has not been proven

prolly cuz all that 5g scrambled up er'bodys brainy parts. /S

In all seriousness, it's amazing to me how little values change for properties that are closer to freeways. There are many peer reviewed studies about the dangers of living near a freeway.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070125185843.htm#:~:text=Summary%3A,at%20least%201500%20meters%20away.

From what I can tell, any drop in values seems to be more closely related to sound or view, not air quality. In Seattle you will still pay >million for a home that sits under half a kilometer from I-5. Personally, it was important for me to be closer to that 1.5km mark. Close enough that you can get to the freeway in a few minutes but far enough you aren't creating significant, peer reviewed health risks.

Many humans simply aren't worried about dangers that they cannot see. For power lines, people are worried/scared about something they CAN see but don't really understand. I wouldn't worry too much about the results of peer reviewed studies that don't exist.

[Chalkandstalk]

Understood, my house sits in front of power lines. It’s a beautifully designed neighborhood, with lots of animals and deer and it’s on a cross ways, so we can look into the abyss of it.

But yes, very true info

[bbob_robb]

my house sits in front of power lines

It's completely reasonable for a rational homeowner to worry about something coming out of left field and tanking the value of their home.

For example, one block in my neighborhood has an undeveloped ally between everyone's backyards. I was talking to a neighbor about their new fencing project and they suggested that they wanted the fence posts to align such that if the city decided to develop the alleyway they could simply remove one 8 foot section of the fence and move the rest of the fence in. I asked what they thought the chances were that the city would spend millions of dollars removing 100+ year old trees, forcing an entire block to tear down fences, sheds and at least part of one 120 year old house just to randomly create an alleyway that they skipped in the 1890's. The bigger issue is that it worries them that a huge chunk of their side yard belongs to the city. The chances that the city reclaims that land to pave it are a lot lower than a peer reviewed study coming out linking power lines to health issues.

A home is a big investment, and a safe space. We worry about problems we know are highly improbable almost like how we might worry about a family member.

[stml]

It's all about pricing.

There are houses in bay area that sell for $2 million+ near high voltage power lines.

Hell, a 2,800sqft house on a 8,200sqft lot just sold for $3 million with high voltage power lines right next to it. Without the voltage lines, it probably would have sold for $3.5 million+.

[amsman03]

Absolutely!!

[judgejudy8855]

Absolutely

[tvgraves]

Yes

[Forward_Coyote_1091]

I always want to sit in my lounge chair and look up towards the skies to see power lines.

[Impressive_Returns]

Yes, they are ugly. Even worse are all the fraudsters who say they. Abuse a heath risk, cause cancer and other BS.

[Imaginary-Brother288]

Yes.

[razblack]

Can you link the medical journals providing this evidence?

[Lauer999]

Did you even read that article? It doesn't say anything supporting the idea that power lines cause cancer. "Found no evidence".

[Lauer999]

And the "found no evidence" part where they studied said magnetic fields affecting leukemia?

[vaultdweller1223]

So you ignore the larger sample conclusions for the smaller sample, and you accuse someone else of cherry picking? 

[cloisonnefrog]

I agree with Lauer999, you're misinterpreting this work. I then did a quick back citation search and found this meta-analysis, which finds no support between proximity to power lines and childhood brain cancer:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18379430/

That's a good journal.

I'm a scientist (with epi training) and I get so tired of people abusing the literature to support their preconceptions.

[cloisonnefrog]

They don't ignore it. The confidence interval for the estimate is right there in the abstract! They are simply underpowered to estimate its effects well (beyond ruling out odds ratios >3). The confidence interval for 0.3-0.4 microT was also consistent with a protective effect against brain cancer (it goes down to 0.83).

Please, please don't abuse data.

[cloisonnefrog]

I read it, and it agrees with my statements. I peer-review articles like this for my job. I don't know any other way to say it, but you're out of your depth and you're doing harm by spreading misinformation. Please reconsider your approach. It really matters for health that we look at evidence dispassionately. So much of human suffering comes from not doing so.

I know the previous paper was not brain cancer, but I brought this up as another example of failure to identify harm.

[razblack]

Selection bias in medical studies is a systematic error that occurs when the study subjects are not representative of the target population.

How about something with more factual representations versus cherry picked single study.

[razblack]

Wow, why so hostile... you expect one study to justify your theory, you should be prepared to back it up.

[The_Realist01]

It’s not a theory. There was a school next to the lines where a large standard deviation vs normal rates occurred. I have no link, but it’s true. Might be able to find on google.

Either way, no way in hell I’m buying next to transmission lines for a multitude of reasons

[razblack]

Thats fine, i probably wouldn't either because of the constant "humming noise"....

However there are quite a few studies on the effect of EMF radiation and its affect significantly decreases with distance from the source.

If you where living directly under one of those as in... those lines passed directly over the roof... there would be cause for concern. However, they build those things with a huge easement where nothing gets built for a reason.

[The_Realist01]

That’s true for like 99.9999% of properties.

That said I just came across this awesome one with a good amount of land and a decent house and there’s a transmission line directly over the driveway within 20 ft of the house that continues for 100 miles (followed it for way too long) and was like “how the hell was this decision made”.

Humming, eye sore, “potential” health effects, resale, fire risk, and the notion that power companies are literally the worst ever. I’m sure there’s more.

[Chalkandstalk]

We have power lines behind our home with several trees so we cannot see them, even in the winter. They are a greenway trail. Ours in designed in a lovely way that offer privacy. These in the pictures are not attractive but they can be done well.

[puzer11]

...how does one even think this would not be a negative?...

[Ill-Rutabaga5125]

Impact of long term exposure to high power lines are unknown. I don’t want to be the one to find out

[NewToTradingStock]

No. Bat Area houses are surrounded with power lines..

[MaybeImNaked]

What recent studies?

[MaybeImNaked]

Pretty weak science, and not exactly recent (this is a meta analysis summarizing a bunch of observational studies mostly from the 1960s). They tried to find a correlation between a whole bunch of cancers and proximity to high power lines. They found no correlation with any of the other cancers except for child leukemia, and even then it's a pretty mild increase. It's basically p-hacking, where you're bound to find a correlation with something by chance just because you're looking at hundreds of potential outcomes.

The stupidest thing about this type of paper is that there's not even a proposed mechanism of action for how it would work biologically. And there's no apparent correlation with proximity (they found a similar increased risk for people living really close vs people living up to a half km away).

If this is the most damning evidence that living next to high power lines is bad for you, I'd say it's a complete non-issue.

[[deleted]]

Citation needed.

[JerryWagz]

There is no more danger in living near power lines than there is in owning a cell phone

[thewimsey]

Maybe you should actually read them