New Tool: Location Affordability Tool

[jfer_rose]

Two US Federal agencies, DOT and HUD, have teamed up to create a tool to compare how transportation impacts housing costs. Looks pretty cool. Read about it here:
http://www.dot.gov/fastlane/learning-true-costs-living-community

[footenote]

Cool resource, thanks for sharing!

I gave it a spin and was initially surprised that the "affordability" index for my current HCOL zipcode is better than for my soon-to-be-home LCOL zipcode.

The difference is that average income in the LCOL area is much lower. (To reference another recent thread, my current zip is 93, or in the upper 7% of U.S. zips. The new once is in the 50's.) So, even though housing is much cheaper, as a percentage of typical income, it's more expensive.

So great resource, but mind the numerator and denominator.

[schimt]

nice to see that they are promoting living closer to work in most cases will save you money in the long run. Of course the DOT has the goal of reducing vehicles using the roads and causing traffic ect.

[NumberCruncher]

Yeah, thanks for posting!

The average vehicle cost in my area is outrageous - average housing + transportation is over 30k! We're under 20k, mostly thanks to not driving much and having a cheap car (only slightly under average housing costs).

[PindyStache]

Yes, this is a very interesting collection/parsing of these data; thanks for sharing.

One thing I find interesting is the large cost difference between renting vs. owning--reinforcing the MMM approaches of both calling into question the traditional "American Dream" of home ownership as a pillar of stable/sustainable living, and avoiding overconsumption of housing.