Saturday, March 14, 2009

A Home Near Your Job Is Not Necessarily The Best Home For You


Tip #91 - A Home Near Your Job Is Not Necessarily The Best Home. Buying a home is a big semi-permanent event. Most people buy homes to live in for a long time. And with the economy the way it is, fewer people will be buying them to flip in the short-term. So if you are buying a house to live in, why not buy one near your job? It will make the commute short; it will cut down on travel costs, and allow you to spend more time in the house you just bought?

Well, because the job you have now is not necessarily the job you will have next month or next year or in five years. So when you quit your job or are laid off, you are stuck with a house that is near a company that you no longer work for. And maybe this town near your job really isn’t that great. You just bought there because the commute was short. So now what? Do you limit yourself and look only for jobs nearby or do you search for jobs on the other side of town or the next town over? Then you have a long commute and live in a place you don’t love.

My advice is to buy a house in a town you love. If the town you love is 45 minutes from work, then take that into consideration when buying, but don’t let it prevent you from buying there. Remember, chances are you will live in your house longer than you will have that job. And more time is spent in your town than at your job, especially when you take into consideration the other members of your family. What is important to you in the place where you live? The schools? The other residents? The parks? The amenities? The commute to work is only one component in home buying. It shouldn’t be the basis of where you buy.

In Real Life (IRL) – This advice is really my brother’s. He has always said that you should buy where you want – not near your job. And I didn’t always agree with him, especially since I had the same job after college for nine years, I wasn’t sure that I would ever leave. But then I did and guess what? He was right. I used to work in the city (Washington, DC) and I commuted via Metro everyday. But then my next job was in the suburbs – actually not too far from where I lived. Then I got married and my husband secured his job, which was about 40 miles from my job. So we could be near one, near the other or not near either. So you know what we did? We found a town we loved and bought our house there. We took our commutes into consideration, of course. But we did not make it the only factor. I have since stopped working, although I hope to go back one day. My husband commutes 25 miles each way to his job.

But we love where we live. It’s a nice town. I meet nice people in it everyday. I like the schools. The amenities - a library, a community center, parks and stores - are all within walking distance of my house. And if my husband gets laid off next month, which I really hope doesn’t happen, then he will look for a new job. His commute may be shorter or it may be longer, but we will still like where we spend our weekends. Our kids will still be happy at their schools. And we will still have great amenities nearby to take advantage of. While I don’t think we will be in this home forever, we bought it hoping to stay here for twenty years or more because we like the town so much. And that is more important to us than the commute to our job.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you so much for the good advice! I agree that it’s important to buy a house or an apartment just right where you want. Don’t let your job’s location to be the decisive factor. Really, most likely that you will live in your house much longer than you will have your job! In any case, even if something goes wrong and you find your way from home to work really uncomfortable, you can always apply to IT resume creators online and find another job. In my opinion, it’s very important to live in a place you like.

Joanna Taylor said...

I also believe that you must live in the place where you like. When I was a summary with a special website and then sent out its not much I looked at the company located. When I found a job as I thought to change apartment closer to work, but then I changed my mind. From home to work I trip one hour. But I do not want to change my apartment, I like where I live.

Unknown said...

Of course, such an addition would be ideal, but still you need to look for a job that will bring a lot of money and thanks to this you will be able to choose your own house so that its location is very close to the office. For example, I created my resume with help of the PaidPaper and was able to find an excellent job!