Is This Home Truly Affordable?

Can I afford to buy this new home? What area of DC should I buy? Would it be easier if I left home earlier? Would I be better off riding a train? How bad will my commute be in five years? A new Web-based tool developed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology can help put facts behind questions like those. The CNT developed a Web site, at http://htaindex.cnt.org/, that takes into account household expenditures for transportation, along with home prices, to estimate whether a home is truly affordable for households with moderate incomes. This may be a good tool for you to use if you are planning a move, but a good rule of thumb is to also check things out the "old fashioned way". A few other tips may be:

1. Always do a trial commute during rush hour before you make an offer on a home. Time the ride and estimate your gas consumption. If you're thinking of taking Metro or commuter rail, price out the weekly expense.

2. As you size up neighborhoods, take the time to figure out where you will worship, buy groceries, go to the movies, enroll the kids in dance class or pick up an extra gallon of milk. Is bus or rail service available, even if only as a backup for days when your car is in the shop? Will your children be able to ride bicycles to the pool, or does a six-lane highway make that too dangerous?
3. It's easy to underestimate your total transportation budget when you house-hunt on a quiet Sunday afternoon. And misjudging your travel needs can seriously derail your after-purchase budget.

Click here to read the whole Washington Post article written by Elizabeth Razzi.
Click here to visit my website for some other very useful tools.

Angela Jones
http://www.angelajonesrealestate.com/