Three Tips For Evaluating A Prospective Home's Commute Times

There are so many things to consider and evaluate when picking out a home to buy that it's easy to let commute times slip under the radar. However, since making a wrong decision here could cause you to waste a huge amount of time over the course of your life, it pays to be very careful. Before you make a decision about any prospective home, follow these three tips for evaluating its commute times.

Make A List Of Everything You'll Need To Visit On A Weekly Basis

Don't just mark the home and your workplace on a map and measure the distance between them with a ruler. At the very least, you should also include a grocery store and the nearest general department store in your area.

In addition to driving from the prospective home to the buildings on your list individually, also drive between the buildings themselves to see how easy it is for you to make an extended errand trip.

See What Rush Hour Feels Like On At Least Two Different Days

If getting to work on time every day is very important to you, it's not enough to just drive up and down your work route late in the evening. By contrast, taking the route during rush hour on multiple days will give you a good sense of both the time sacrifice and the extra stress involved in commuting on a regular basis.

It's important to see rush hour from the perspective of multiple days so that you know your first experience wasn't a fluke or a product of a particular weekday.

Check Whether Accidents Are Common Anywhere On Your Work Route

Obviously, any accident that occurs on a relatively inflexible commuting route is going to seriously disrupt the rhythm of your day. In the worst case, it can even get you stuck in a traffic jam. Therefore, to roughly estimate your risk factor, look up all the accidents that have happened in your home's locale and see how many of them occurred on your route.

Accidents are an especially big danger if much of the route consists of a crowded freeway and you have few obvious side roads to take as alternatives. A crowded and hectic road with a relatively high speed limit usually results in a relatively high frequency of accidents. 

Even if it's just to save your car from taking on more miles than necessary, a little bit of effort now can save a lot of trouble in the future. For more information about homes for sale in the locations you like, talk to a realtor today.


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