Quote:
Originally Posted by Dthraco
I was looking for places further from town and asked if he had any experience or insight. He said he had lived in the Waipahu area previously and that he would never wish that drive on anyone. In 2009 he spent $400 a month in gas just to get to and from work. He said that even though the $400 in fuel did not make up the difference in price, he was glad he bought a condo in town because it was worth not having the drive. I imagine the drive is worse now than in 2009.
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People actually don't realize how costly it is to drive so far every day. If you are spending $400/mo on gas, you are spending at least double that in real costs when you factor in maintenance, repairs, upkeep and vehicle depreciation as a direct result of putting all that mileage on a car. If you spend $400/mo on gas, you're really spending $800/mo to commute. Those are hard costs. If a couple resides in the home and both have to commute separately (which is WAY more common these days than couples carpooling), that's $1,600/mo in hard costs per month lost vs living in town. That will cover $320,000 in mortgage alone.
And this does not take into account the value of ones' time. If you sat in traffic just one extra hour a day over someone that lived in town, and you could work instead of driving with a paid salary of $75K/year, you are effectively losing $11K in earnings every single year. That's an additional $900/mo in lost earnings. So if you could work instead of sit in your car in traffic, you are effectively losing $800/mo in gas/vehicle depreciation and maintenance and $900/mo in lost work time. That's $1,700/mo for one person. If it's a married couple that both work and both made $75K, that's $3,400 lost every month. That will cover almost $700K in mortgage AND you can write off the interest AND about 1/3 of the $3,400/mo you pay actually goes back into your pocket (and that figure increases as you pay your mortgage down). That was obviously an extreme example but whatever the price disparity is, it's not close to what it should be. I don't think people that can afford to live in town but move to west Oahu put a lot of thought into their decision. I'm vastly oversimplifying on the time lost to commuting (e.g. some may say driving is relaxing) but when you factor the true cost of commuting alone, a home in town is comparatively dirt cheap.
I don't know... maybe I'm just weird. But for the people that can afford it, I can't comprehend why they won't spend at extra $500-$1,000/mo in a higher mortgage ($100-$200K in additional purchase price) so they won't have to be forced to, day in day out, sit in a painful one and a half hours of stop and go stop and go stop and go... traffic for miles and miles on end. People spend $500 on a a car payment alone. I don't think people clearly understand the value of that higher monthly payment... that 2/3 can be written off completely and the 1/3 goes right into your pocket.
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