here in the UK
buying just a apartment in the mid city of london can be £1m+
yet 1 hour train commute someone can get a house of bigger liiving space for £200k
the price of the commute if done 5 days a week for 20 years is way way way way less than £200k combined. meaning a saving for £600k
yep all-in you can have a nice size countryside house with good views and quiet living and commute to work in london knowing your only 1 hour away. all for $400k on a 20year mortgage.. or pay 1 million and still be 20 minutes from workplace
You are loosing time and time = money
5 days a week x 48 weeks a year (52 weeks - vacation and holidays) = 240 days
240 days x 2 hours a day = 480 hours a year
480 hours x 20 years = 9600 hours there is a cost to that.
I am not figuring in the time it takes you to get from your house to the train station. Since from one side of a city to another also takes time.
At least here in the US living in a place like NYC also means you don't need a car for the most part. And with things like zipcar if you do need to go somewhere one is available. So you save on cost of owning a car and insurance and such.
Some people like the city, others like the country, but in the end you have to do what works for you.
... And as you said, people effectively being locked out of big cities like San Francisco and NYC isn't a new thing at all. It's been that way since before I was born and I seriously doubt it's going to change....
Yup, I remember back in the mid 70s how people were saying that NYC is too expensive for people to live there and it's crime filled and everyone is leaving and it's going to go bankrupt and so on.
I put it into the category of when people say "It's to crowded, nobody goes there"
Fixed it- The U.S. Needs More Affordable Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine. It's more of an affordability issue than a inventory issue, esp in cities and suburbs. The situation is so dire that folks are working 40+ hours/week and more than one job and still cannot afford.
It's also a matter of generating headlines.
Within an hour train ride of NYC housing is still expensive. Bump that up to a 90 minute train ride it really starts to drop. A lot. Like a whole lot.
But as I posted above time = money that is an extra 200+ hours a year on the train. (30 minutes extra each way = 5 hours a week = 225+ hours a year) and the longer the train ride the more expensive it is. But saying you can still be a short(ish) train ride away and have a nice place as franky1 said, does not generate the clicks on the headlines.
On the other hand salaries in NYC are way above what other places pay and finding work is easier. Case in point I have a friend of a friend who just got fired from twitter. Single no ties to be here. Got a job offer from another big tech company, could stay here in NYC and make about 5% more then he was getting at Twitter OR move to SF and make about 10% more OR move to Texas and take a 20% pay cut.
Yeah, he is staying here. With 20% cut in TX he would probably be in about the same financially possibly a bit better BUT and this is a big BUT said other tech company is the ONLY major employer for about a two hour drive. So if it does not work out he is screwed. The new job implodes here in NY there are enough other places to work. Someplace (and I really did forget the name of the town) on the TX / OK border for tech the options are a lot more limited.
-Dave