Looking at houses? Make sure you can live with the commute or you could be miserable.
\When you buy a home, there's a lot to think about. Purchasing a property is a major decision as your home will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and you'll be making mortgage payments for decades.
Some criteria, however, are more important than others in terms of whether you end up being happy with your property for the long term. In particular, there's one key thing you absolutely need to consider because it can make a bigger impact than almost anything else when it comes to your long-term satisfaction. Here's what it is.
When you are looking into houses that you're thinking about, one of the single most important factors to consider is the commute you will have from your home to the places that you must go on a frequent basis.
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Typically, the place that people drive to the most often is their job. So, unless you are planning to switch careers very soon or work remotely, you will want to make absolutely sure that your commute to work will not be an unpleasant one from any house you are considering purchasing.
You may also have other places that you go to on a regular basis, such as a family member's home or a school that your children will be attending for years to come. If you have other locations you are going to have to drive to regularly for years, you should make certain you evaluate the drive to and from these spots as well.
When you consider the commute, think about the time and stress involved in getting to your final destination. If you are likely to have a very long commute, encounter tons of traffic, or have to regularly travel on busy and dangerous roads that you do not feel comfortable on, then you should seriously reconsider whether the property is the right one for you.
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Should a bad commute be a deal-breaker?
A bad commute could be a huge problem in terms of your long-term happiness with your house. If you find yourself getting stressed multiple times a day when you drive to and from work or to and from school or a family member's house, this is going to cause your life satisfaction to decline substantially.
Likewise, if your commute ends up eating up hours of your day, this will leave you with less time for family or hobbies and this is going to adversely affect your quality of life as well. And this is a problem you generally can't solve easily once you have moved in since you cannot change the location of your house and probably won't be able to easily switch jobs or schools or get your family members to move closer.
Now, in some cases, you may have no choice but to accept a bad commute if you work in a major city and can't afford to live there, or if there are limited options for how to get to work and no houses close by you would feel comfortable with. But as a general matter, a bad commute should be a deal-breaker if there are options to avoid it as there is no reason to needlessly buy a house that makes your life more difficult on a regular basis.
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