[quote=CONCHO]How much is your time worth? How much is time spent with your family worth? Any time you’re looking at 1.5 or more hours in a car, 5 days a week, that’s a significant amount of time away from your family, it’s a significant amount of time you can’t be shopping, exercising, cleaning the house, etc… That time has to be made up somehow. Also, 40000 a year die in traffic accidents and many times that are seriously injured. Every minute you spend in a car increases your chances.
[/quote]
True, when you put it that way, 1.5 hrs a day sounds like a LOT….but realistically wherever I’d buy (a decent size SFR in 500K range) I’d have to commute at least 30′ to work (e.g. PQ, CMR, 4S, Sabre Springs). SO the difference doesn’t become THAT big. It would be 1.5 hrs vs 1 hr. daily. Just half an hour extra daily.
It’s not like I have a choice to live somewhere next to work in a decent place that I can afford. If I had, I could certainly say 1.5 hrs a day it’s not worth it.
Edit: Our first priority is the schools, which is why we looked first in PUSD. Just too little inventory and still, IMHO, overpriced. At least there you can say that you get excellent schools, for commuting longer.
Many people really don’t think that commuting 45′ one way is a big deal, in fact they didn’t even bother mentioning it to us when we were looking for our 1st house, and they shrugged when we were complaining about the commute. I changed workplaces, but still, I couldn’t find ONE to say that (s)he’d rather commute less even if that makes for a much smaller/pricier house. EVERYBODY wants the big house and good schools, commute be damned. I have working moms co-workers that live in Temecula and Vista and it takes them about 1 hr one way. They don’t complain (like I was).
