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For me, that's not that long of a commute.

For my first house, I ended up living 25 miles from work (about an hour and a half commute) because it was important for me to have a house and not a tiny studio/condo. DH and I prefer to live a little further out and have more of a suburban home, so the commute is part of our lifestyle.

So to me, another 10 minutes isn't a deal breaker if the house really is great.

We just did this and totally regret it. We bought the perfect house, but 20 minutes out and it's been terrible. We deal with a lot of traffic and commuting sucks so much out of our day. Especially with little ones, having to drive 20 minutes to get anywhere really ends up being 30-45 and it's such a pain. We dislike it so much, we are getting ready to rent out our house and move closer.

On the other hand, my sister bought a house in the same neighborhood, and they are fine with it because she stays at home and her DH has flexible hours so he doesn't commute during peak times. But for me, I'd take having DH home to help earlier over a perfect house plan any day. One of my real estate truths is you can change everything about a house, except the location. I kick myself everyday for choosing the further out house, it's been so much harder than I anticipated for us.

i would not. we rented a place further out until buying a place closer in. we realized that commute time is a big priority for us and greatly impacts our quality of life. that being said, we didn't spend the extra $100K it would have cost to live an extra 10 minutes closer to work.

I commute 35 minutes right now and I dont mind it a bit. But there is zero traffic and it's all highway. A commute is just part of our day and it's time to listen to music and relax before the evening routine hits when I pick up the girls.

I do a 35 minute commute from the city to a suburb now and I loathe it. Its all city driving and theres lots of traffic. I feel like it affects my quality of life. We live in an insane housing market (vancouver) and we love our place and location now so we won't be moving any time soon. I just have to accept it for the time being.

DH moved office (not the same as moving house but go with me) and went from a 45 minute commute to a ten minute one. It has GREATLY improved home life.

Those 35 minutes at the end of the day mean he can see the babies before they're in bed. He used to just miss them or would get 15-20 minutes of cranky kids. Now he catches the tail end of dinner and can do bath time.

So not exactly the same, but we decided to live in a very walkable section of the city, even though that means DH commutes about 25ish minutes out to the 'burbs for his job. Yes, he'd love to be able to walk or have a much shorter drive, but our house is 2 blocks from a great elementary school, 3 blocks from the park, 6 blocks from our church and library, and a range of stores & restaurants are within 10 blocks. And we are also within a 10min drive of downtown. So we figured that despite having the commute, we are walkable and/or a short drive to everything else. To us that was worth it.

I would not pick a home if it were a 30min+ commute AND you had to drive to everything else too, no matter how perfect.

No, nope, no way. I learned my lesson when I lived in Franklin. Easy commutes are very important to my day to day happiness. I'm willing to take a lesser house.

@looch: This is a bit of detour from the topic at hand, but I don't think self-driving cars are a good solution to the problem of a long commute. The reason I dislike long car commutes is that sitting in a car of any type is pretty terrible for individual humans, their communities, and the environment. I think sitting for prolonged periods is bad from both a physical and mental health perspective, particularly sitting in one position in a small, contained space. I also think it's much better for humans (being social animals) to do their work/spend the bulk of their time as close as possible to their homes, because being together is how you create a community. And self-driving cars will still have to run on some sort of fuel that has negative environmental repercussions for the foreseeable future. I don't think that solar cars are going to be a viable option for a while for a lot of reasons and we don't really produce that much electricity via solar/other renewables, so that's not an ideal option either. Anyhow, just my two cents. I'll let this thread get back to the topic at hand now, but I wanted to address the self-driving car point.

@honeybear: Well, we can agree to disagree. It's simply another technological advance that I rather enjoy given my current work and living locations. We take delivery of our electric version at the end of March. Since we can use the supercharging stations, our cost to charge will be zero.

I never thought I would say this but I am firmly Team Musk.

a 40 minute commute would not deter me from the "perfect" house.

No, I wouldn't buy it. I feel like it's priced that way because the location isn't nearly as convenient. My husband and I spent a fortune on a house right in the city and we both walk 10 mins to work (!!!) It is super expensive, but *for us* the non-existent commute really adds to our family time, which we think is important. Basically everything is within walking distance. We only own one car and don't use it often (which also cuts down on expenses for us). We go to a local park almost everyday and have met tons of families there. We love our neighbourhood.

So basically, for us, it wouldn't be the "perfect" house if it really lengthened the commute.

@Greentea: I would LOVE that lifestyle! A home in that kind of area would run you about $2 million in our town (for a 2 br condo). I used to rent in a neighborhood like that when I was single and loved it. Just not realistic for us anymore, unfortunately. Even when living in that amazing neighborhood, I still had to take public transportation to work since my job was not right downtown.

I would want to know what the commute really is during rush hour before buying. But an hour isn't that horrible, and on days with overtime maybe he'd miss rush hour anyway. But an hour is also not ideal. And are you sure about the community makeup or is that just what you observed? I would do a lot of research on the area itself. Also, I would want to know what the status of the city/town was..growing, stagnant, declining? We are in a similar position and considering moving, but that's because the commute is manageable according to dh's coworkers, and the area is much safer, with better school districts, as well. You also have to take into consideration how much you use the things available in your current area. I can't remember if you are a sahm. I am, but our dd is in preschool, so that's a consideration as well. (I know your lo is still a baby, but if daycare is involved...)

Ultimately it depends on what you want. If your gut feeling says this is right for your family, probably keep digging into the area and the logistics of everything!