We house sat for a week in the area we originally considered purchasing in, and the commute sealed the deal for us. The cost of both of us having a vehicle, combined with higher insurance, maintenance, and earlier burn out, just wasn't worth it. Also if you drive into town, but take transit into the core, you can also add that cost into your monthly fees. At the time we were looking, 2008 we had a car that was extremely reasonable on gas; we were filling up every 5 days.
My sister in law lives in the little community we were considering. She never comes out to social activities unless is a very special occasion. They always want guests to come out there, but nobody wants to make the commute. She frequently complains about how she forgot to buy X, Y, or Z while she was last in town and then has to pay the inflated cost at the local corner/grocery store. Also they've now written off two cars in 4 years due to road conditions; spin outs, animal encounters, etc. Essentially her home cut her off from everyone.
In the summer my commute from home (inner city) to work (downtown) is 15 minutes, tonight it was 45 minutes, and on both Monday and Tuesday of last week it was well over an hour. I have multiple routes I can take, and they were all bad.
I am not a fan of cookie cutter houses, and so we took a bit of a different approach to buying a home. We purposefully sought out the ugliest/worst house in the best neighbourhood we could afford. We purchased our house at around 50% of the cost our two neighbours paid (they moved in 3-6 months after we did). Yes, there was a lot of work, but the bulk of it was/is cosmetic. We did have to wait, we viewed numerous properties, but in the end we ended up with a charming little 1950s home that required landscaping, paint, new appliances, and updated light fixtures.
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