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Another first-time home buyers question regarding commute to work

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Originally posted by: krunchykrome
Here is the issue I am having with my fiancee. Some of you may have read my recent thread about Seasoned homebuyers-tips for a first time home buyer.

My fiancee and I are having some trouble agreeing on the area to purchase a home. She wants to stay in our current area. Homes in this area are incredibly pricey. For the price we are currently shopping for, we would be settling for a small house, possibly a townhouse in this area. She wants to stay in this pricey area because her all of her family lives here, my family lives here, our friends live here, we're 30 minutes from work, and the location is extremely convenient for anything we need. Anything we need to find (hospital to mall) is literally 5 minutes away.

I on the other hand want to move one hour away. The commute to work would be about 60 miles. In this area, houses are incredibly cheaper. For the price of the small home we can afford in our current area, we would be able to afford an extremely large mcmansion if we'd be willing to move an hour away. My logic behind this is that the commute to work is not that bad if we leave at the right time. We wouldnt have to move again in 5 or so years because we already live in a huge house. I can't come to terms with spending $360K+ on a small 1700 sq-ft house just to live in this area when we could buy a 2700sq-ft house an hour away for $50k-$100k less.

Other reasons why she wants to stay in this area is because when we have kids, our parents can watch them while we are at work so we can save money. My argument against that is with all of the money we'd be saving on a house in the other area, we can afford daycare, hell, even maybe a nanny.

What do you all think of this? Is this commute I am proposing crazy? In the end, if she wants to live here, then we will live here, because the #1 factor when buying a new home is are we happy with the lifestyle in our home/area. I'll be fine here or there, I just prefer to live there.
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What's the difference in your mortgage payment between the $360k and a $260k house? How much more would you spend in gas if you lived 60 miles away?

Personally, I'm siding with your wife. If you can get free daycare with her parents that alone is worth at least $1000/month. Add the difference in fuel costs to that and you're looking at a huge savings by buying a home where you are now.

BTW-If you need a referral to a good realtor in your area let me know.
 
I own a house that is 20 miles away and it takes me 45 mins on average each way also.

I really wish I had a home that was 5 miles away but like you in your situation, we went for a more affordable home that was the better "bang for the buck"

But I'm wasting 1.5 hours of my day, 5 days a week that I could be home with my wife or sitting on my ass watching TV versus fighting traffic and spending roughly $22 per day round trip in gas that I currently am.

I do love my house and the location it's in but this sitting in traffic and cost of gas is getting old quick.

 
Originally posted by: Injury
I grew up living about 45 minutes away from my nearest relatives. It sucked to only see some family members once or twice a year and we would always have to leave parties early to compensate for driving time.

If you care about your family, stay close to them.

.
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What The Fuck??

when i was a kid my closest relative was 3 hours away, after that it was 7 hours then 12 hours and i saw them all more then once or twice a year
 
Originally posted by: Anubis
Originally posted by: Injury
I grew up living about 45 minutes away from my nearest relatives. It sucked to only see some family members once or twice a year and we would always have to leave parties early to compensate for driving time.

If you care about your family, stay close to them.

.
Click to expand...

What The Fuck??

when i was a kid my closest relative was 3 hours away, after that it was 7 hours then 12 hours and i saw them all more then once or twice a year
Click to expand...

He went over it already..
 
Originally posted by: BassBomb
Originally posted by: Anubis
Originally posted by: Injury
I grew up living about 45 minutes away from my nearest relatives. It sucked to only see some family members once or twice a year and we would always have to leave parties early to compensate for driving time.

If you care about your family, stay close to them.

.
Click to expand...

What The Fuck??

when i was a kid my closest relative was 3 hours away, after that it was 7 hours then 12 hours and i saw them all more then once or twice a year
Click to expand...

He went over it already..
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yea and it still a WTF, hell its a 45 min drive to the closes Mall here i think even I end up there more then twice a year
 
After exhausting our opinions, we've decided to limit our search for a house in our current area.

We visited a few townhomes the other day. They have 2 car garages, which I really liked. Driving through the area though, I immedietly knew I would not purchase a home in that area. The area looks nice, but there we're people walking around who looked like they were up to no good. On the way out of the community, an SUV had been pulled over. Some guy was handcuffed and there were about 5 police cars with cops everywhere. Now I understand why those townhomes were listed at the prices that they were. Thats the thing about this area; one area might be very nice with very responsible upstanding citizens, and 5 minutes away, you've got bums, the type of people who you dont want as neighbors.

Then we visited a townhome in Columbia. It's got a 1 car garage, and a deck. It had hardwood floors and a marble-top kitchen. It was a bit on the pricey side, but we both liked it very much. The neighborhood was great as well; I know this particular area very well.

Tonight, we're going to visit a few more houses. One option we are considering is having one of these homes built for us. They're in our price range. We have an appointment to meet with someone from Ryan Homes on Saturday and we'll check out the model home as well.
 
that's an hour out of your life every day... practically an entire extra day lost to commuting every month.

an hour commute may not be a big deal to you, but personally, I did the hour each way thing for 6 months and it was like soul-killing.
 
Originally posted by: BassBomb
Are you looking brand new or any?
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Like most people, we would love to buy a brand new home. But we arent looking into one more than the other. A previously owned home is completely fine as well.
 
I think you need to continue the discussion with your wife and see what you agree together. If you go for the big house, do the move, and she ends up not happy it's going to cost you more in the long run. (meaning, you may eventually end up moving back and losing out on equity you could have earned in the more prime location)

I would see about compromising and maybe checking some other locations....perhaps even looking for a fixer-upper in your area so you can renovate it to your liking without breaking the bank.
 
So, basically, a whole lot of negatives to get a bigger house. It's not like a small one is somehow a worse finanacial invesment. If you have no need for a bigger one, you better have a pretty good reason to be dealing with everything that's coming out of this.

Edit: Didn't read the whole thread, maybe this'll at least make you feel better 😕
 
I'll chime in with my experience. I moved from a smaller home in the middle of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex to a bigger home on the fringe of north Fort Worth, which has now effectively cut off the really good tech jobs in Dallas for me due to length of commute. While I do love the new home and the area, the commute absolutely stinks.

I read somewhere that people can adjust to smaller living space, but they'll never adjust to longer commutes. I think that holds true.
 
Continue to rent and save, in another 3yrs you will be getting paid more on your jobs and you will have more $$$ saved.

Buy you 2000 sq ft house then.


No chance you could get me to commute 60-miles every day.



 
Originally posted by: Boogak
I'll chime in with my experience. I moved from a smaller home in the middle of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex to a bigger home on the fringe of north Fort Worth, which has now effectively cut off the really good tech jobs in Dallas for me due to length of commute. While I do love the new home and the area, the commute absolutely stinks.

I read somewhere that people can adjust to smaller living space, but they'll never adjust to longer commutes. I think that holds true.
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I'll agree for the most part, but some folks are lucky enough to have good public transit. If I could drive 10 minutes to get on a train that took me to work, I'd have less issues with a long commute. It's much better when you're not the one behind the wheel. It takes all the stress out of it.
 
OP, you've already lost the argument. Your fiancee doesn't want to move out of the area. Looking for "logical" reasons why you should opt for a longer commute is a hopeless cause.
 
I would live in the smaller house closer to work. What good is a giant fucking home if you spend 2+ hours of your life everyday in the car?

//edit

owned by necro.


OTOH, what did the OP end up doing?
 
I chose to stay in the city because driving is way the hell too expensive.

When I drove to work, about 50km in each direction, gas for the Corolla was about $220 per month. Now that the office is located downtown, parking would be an additional $250/month. Then on top of that I would have things like added car maintenance, oil changes, etc. We could round that expense up to maybe $550/month to drive. Without driving, I take the bus for $86/month. That's a cost difference of $464/month just for transportation, for me only.
The gf has assigned parking at her work, so she would just be paying for gas. Her car a piece of shit Suzuki Verona that burns as much gas as a V6 SUV even though it's a 2.5L car, so her monthly gas would cost about $345. With car maintenance that goes up to about $400 per month. A bus pass is still only $86, so that's a difference of $314/month for her to drive.

$464 per month for me to drive
+ $314 per month for her to drive
= $778 per month added transportation cost if we lived out of the city

What the fuck. Seriously. My mortgage costs about $712/month, so living outside of the city means our transportation would actually be more expensive than our mortgage. At least the mortgage goes away after you've paid for it. That transportation cost never goes away. What I could do is look at the numbers and compare what buys a nicer place to live. Normalizing for cost, I would either pay a $712/month mortgage outside of the city or I could buy something that is $1490/month (because 778 + 712 = 1490) inside the city, and the overall cost would be the same. Which one do you think will buy a nicer property? On top of that, taking the bus to work takes less than 30 minutes. Driving from outside of the city to downtown would take an absolute minimum of 1 hour.

also, when you do have kids, would you rather spend 2.5 hr hours EVERY day in your car or playing with them?
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Trick question. Maybe the kids are little monsters. In that case, I would rather listen to Joe Rogan's podcast in the car instead of deal with them.


edit:
Note that numbers favoring city living only work when dealing with small cheap properties, such as mine. If you were buying a 5 million dollar home, living outside of the city would make a lot more sense as it would save hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of dollars. The transportation cost would still only be tens of thousands over the years.
 
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