Housing price growth is finally slowing down

[Handruin]

I know jtr won't be my fan when I say I did move further away from my work to obtain a better value on a house. I now commute about 80 miles a day because the housing market within 25 miles of my work is very high and Unaffordable. (I know you all see the same in your respective areas so I won't preach to the choir)

Laura and I had been looking for a house since March...we looked at so many of them and each time I couldn't come to grips with the fact that $250-$280 buys a house in need of most major repairs. (roof, furnace, painting, siding...etc) We moved 40 miles away and we were able to afford a new home.

I do car pool now. Come winter time Laura and I will car pool more often, but right now I car pool with another person.

 

[jtr1962]

Since you're carpooling with a person who presumably would be making the trip each day with or without you at least you aren't using any extra energy (well, a little more since the car is heavier with you in it, but not much more ) or causing any more congestion. The big drawback I see is mainly for you in this case. Commuting 40 miles each way is monumental when done by road. It can take an hour, or it can take three hours. You never know which from day to day because travel by car is highly unreliable except in rural areas, which is why I hate it. I'm the kind of person who gets pissed when the train arrives one minute late. I have no patience to deal with delays of many minutes or even hours on a regular basis. And this isn't even getting into car fumes making me sick even to go a mile or two. As long as you can deal with it, it's your choice but I think there are better ways to spend ones time than getting to work. Manhattan, which averages about 45 minutes most of the time, is about as far as I would consider commuting, and only if I was paid well. For average wages, I won't go more than about 10 minutes by bike, walking, or local bus.

P.S. I do have some experience with long commutes. For 2.5 years I commuted ~65 miles each way to college but this was only for about 26 weeks of the year, and frequently I would arrive at 9 and leave by mid-afternoon (hardly equivalent to a regular work day). Also, my commuting was done entirely on rails with the exception of a 3 mile bus ride from my house to the subway. The breakdown was 3 miles bus (15 minutes), 10 miles subway (20 minutes), 48.5 miles commuter rail (1 hour local or 40 minutes express), 3 miles local shuttle train (5 minutes). Counting average waiting times and giving enough time to arrive before the commuter train left I usually made the trip in two hours. I made it in 1:45 when I made good connections. By car the trip was 73 miles and two hours under favorable conditions. Needless to say, I wouldn't have considered this commute practical if not for the high-speed commuter rail (the locals made eight or nine stops yet still averaged 50 mph thanks to fast acceleration and 100+mph top speeds). Driving, regular commuter rail, or bus would have taken far too long. Also, I wouldn't consider a two hours each way commute if I needed to work 8+ hours. It would just be too exhausting to do for any length of time.

 

[Fushigi]

Another good thing about carpooling is that the people who aren't driving are basically free to nap, read, work via laptop, etc. In theory the time doesn't have to be wasted and the stress level shouldn't rise.

My commute is 23 miles each way. 35-40 minutes in the morning; 50-55 in the afternoon. Mostly one long street the entire way. Taking the highway would make the timing less consistent and would almost always take longer. A minor saving grace is that I generally telecommute 1 day per week. Another is that I tend to work from 6:30-7 until 3-4:30 so I mostly avoid the worst part of rush 'hour' except some afternoons.

Downside is there's very little chance to carpool. It's suburb-to-suburb so mass transit basically doesn't work. No bus system by the house so I'd have to drive to the train station. While a train does cover a nice chunk of the distance, there's no system of transport from the train to the office (about 6 miles).

Despite the 3L V6 and 90K miles on the clock, my car still averages around 25MPG for this commute and almost 27MPG for straight highway driving. It's supposed to require prmium but I burn standard 87 octane about 60% of the time.

 

[Pradeep]

10 miles to work
Between 12 and 16 mins including one segment of Thruway.
Around 1/3 gallon of gas ~ 68 cents.

 

[Handruin]

My ride is now longer but less stressfull. There have been numerous times I'd like to strangle someone for their crappy driving. That ride also had a lot of stop and go traffic which you already know is worse for gas mileage, and harder on a car. On many occasions I'd average 26 MPG, but now that my new ride is mostly highway, I'm getting 30+ MPG with the A/C on all the time.