With house prices rising beyond what we wanted to spend, we started looking at areas outside our current neighbourhood. The most obvious choice would be to move out to the eastern suburbs where prices are lower. This raised a couple of important issues.
The first issue has to do with commute times. This is something that I was not able to compromise on. The longest I am willing to travel is 1 hour each day (30 minutes each way). If we move to the eastern suburbs it could easily be 45 minutes to 60 minutes of driving. This would be huge hit to my quaility of life; and something many people don't consider when picking a location to live. Also I question how much money would actually be saved. Right now I spend under $100 / month on gas; this is with a 20KM / day commute. This could easily jump to $400 -$500 per month if my driving increased.
The other issue we faced with moving out of our existing neighbourhood was that of lifestyle. Moving would require us to change schools for the kids along with other changes. With all things considered even moving 1 hour away is a big change to our life.
After considering both these issues we decided to expand our search beyond the Vancouver area to see what we could find.
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