alt Hacker NewsThe complaint about cars resonates with me. I feel the same way about being tied to an apartment though - why work so hard just to give it all away to the landlord?
The sad truth is time lost to commute is no different to time lost paying for a more expensive apartment closer to work. They are balanced by the market. Unless you're wealthy, you have to trade to time to survive.
Looking in that area, there's some amazing cheap houses with lots of space
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8741-County-Road-863-Prin...? https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/131-Avalon-Dr-Princeton-T...? https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5682-Orchard-Pkwy-Fairvie...
It's not for everybody, but options like this simply don't exist at all in Europe.
As for me, I paid around 400k in Australia and I'm near / walking distance to parks, rec centers, aquatic centers, cinemas, all kinds of sports facilities, libraries, shopping centers. Many high paid jobs for engineers nearby. I don't commute every day, and when I do I listen to podcasts, or think about ideas I've been working on, or make phone calls.
> I feel the same way about being tied to an apartment though - why work so hard just to give it all away to the landlord?
Comparing a $424k house, you can get significantly closer into the city and have a much better commute and still own your home. It's a false dichotomy to think one needs to rent at those kinds of prices further into the city, or at least a city with actual city-like amenities and wide job prospects within a 10 minute drive. You just might have other tradeoffs, like a smaller lot or an older house.
My current home is slightly larger than that first example, there's a bus stop outside, I ride my bicycle to the office, take the train to my favorite sports games, and is somewhere around the same value with recent appraisals. But I've got significantly less grass to mow, and my property taxes are a bit higher.