Transportation costs are a huge factor in your community's affordability.
We all know how the current price of gas is changing how affordable the outlying communities are. Paying $400/month for gas takes a big bite out of your monthly expenses. How much more home could you buy if half of that were applied to a mortgage? About $33,000.00 more. That allows you to consider some of the newer, close in, well designed communities which have a much greater "walkability" factor. Remember that when you go to sell in about 5 or 7 years the buyers are generally not a married with 2 children household. These upcoming buyers will be looking for exciting design, pleasurable walking distance to daily needs, healthy building materials and energy conservation.
One effort to demonstrate this has been undertaken by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and the Brooking's Institution's Urban Initiatives Program. They have developed a measure that factord in transportation costs and housing expenses to provide a more accurate picture of affordability than housing costs alone.
Their assumption is that areas in which housing plus transportation costs exceed 48% are considered unaffordable. Housing costs should be below 30% annually. The Dept of Labor shows that way back in 2004 we spent an average of 18% of our annual budgets on transportation. Our current auto expenses can easily take a community out of the 48% range. The website has calculated 52 metropolitan areas on their website, http://htaindex.cnt.org.
I encourage you to promote the cause for walkable neighborhoods, increased access to public transportation and a local option tax which can allow us to decide our own fate with public transit.
Today there are some great examples of these communities and we have many more in the planning stage. Call your Realtor and ask them to show you some.