My husband, daughter and I will be moving soon to be closer to his family (nuclear+2/3 of extended). We'll be renting month to month on the lake where most of his family lives while looking for a house. Given the market in the area, it's far cheaper to buy than to rent. There's three towns where we're considering buying: the small city where his job is (I work remotely), the lake where his family mostly is, or a suburb where the school we want to send our daughter to school.
The job city is 30 minutes from his family, 30 minutes from the suburb town and 45 minutes from our ideal high school for our daughter. The lake is about 30 minutes from his job and the high school and about 20 minutes from the elementary school. The suburb is about 20 minutes from family, 30 minutes from job and 10-15 minutes from the high school. The real estate markets are very strong in the suburb and at the lake, and dismal, but very cheap, in the job city. Prices of what we'd want are around $100-150k in the suburb, about $250k at the lake and about $75k in the job city.
We're very close to his family and would love to live near them. But I grew up in a suburb and have never lived more than a mile from a grocery store. The lake is 15 minutes from the closest grocery store, 20 minutes from church (which is in the suburb town) and is horrific in terms of walking anywhere apart from to the lake or to family, who would be our next door neighbors. My husband would probably want to live on the lake asap. I think I'd prefer the suburb at least till our daughter's done high school, and then maybe move to the lake. So we're still hashing out what we actually want, but this isn't contentious. We fish and kayak, so the lake would be awesome, but I'm apprehensive about how remote it is.
Where do you think we should live? I'd also any other advice on our situation. Especially from people who understand why I'm hesitant about so much driving. It's too normal for his family (his dad commutes 1.25 hours and one uncle commutes 1.5 hours, each way, almost all highway. Another uncle used to commute 6 hours to the other side of the state, stay there during the week, and drive home on the weekends. I love them, but that's way too much for me.).
Thanks! (and thanks for reading the novel)