Gas Prices Force Buyers to Rethink 'Burbs

Not too long ago, some of my friends used to ask me what the big deal was about living in the City.

"Why is it so expensive?" "I can get more home for my money in the suburbs." "I need a yard and a buffer from my neighbors..."

Gripe, gripe, gripe.

Now those very same people are watching their neighbors get the boot. Enter the lender's Intent to Foreclose letter. Now the creditors are incessantly calling to collect on those charged up accounts for HDTVs and Louis Vuitton bags. Here comes the repo man, trying to tow away that gas-guzzling SUV that only mommy would drive and ride in.

What a waste. What a joke.

Now, let's get one thing clear. I'm not condemning the suburbs that actually have infrastructure, a job industry and a self-supporting local government. I'm referring to the surrounding cities in the Bay Area that are bedroom communities for San Francisco employees.

I'm also not referring to minimum-wage workers or other lower-income families. They aren't the ones splurging and maxing out their credit cards, taking out second mortgages and overextending themselves for the sake of suburban utopia. (I really feel for those people, who can't seem to catch a break).

My point -- and there should always be one -- is that these irresponsible families should have applied that down payment or 100% financing (whatever it is they used to land that huge house in the 'burbs a few years back) into a more stable property in a stable market, like in San Francisco.

You know... where these very same people actually work to make whatever ends meet. The urban sprawl they loathed to live in, but need so desperately to find work and get paid.

"Ugh, but it's so stuffy. I can only stay there for an 8-hour work day. Perish the thought of having to set roots there."

Here's a novel idea: Live in the city you work in. Like BART says, "Simplify your life."

If you must drive, at least you'll be using less gas. Live close enough that you aren't commuting two hours a day in traffic. Surely you have better things to do.

Alas, social and ecological responsibility? Perish the thought, indeed.

Gas Prices Force Buyers to Rethink 'Burbs

High gas prices are affecting American workers' attitudes toward commuting and are prodding many to trade in their large homes in the exurbs for smaller, more urban properties.

Buying a 6,000-square-foot home with a large yard and a sport-utility vehicle to boot made sense when gas and property prices were low, economists say, but gasoline is now cost-prohibitive for many.

If the federal government lifts the heavy gas subsidies that encourage suburban growth, many Europeans pay $8 a gallon for gas, suburban residents will abandon their properties en masse and move in closer to urban transit stations.

"What were pluses of that lifestyle are now liabilities: a big SUV, a big home to heat, the energy needed to mow the lawn," says CEO Tom Darden of the Raleigh-based real estate conversion group Cherokee Investment Partners.

The firm takes properties close to transit centers in urban areas and develops them into housing.

Properties in the Washington, D.C.-metro area, Montreal, and Denver are thriving, says Darden, while property values in far-removed exurbs like Loudoun County, Va., and California's Central Valley are plummeting.

Source: The Washington Post, Eric M. Weiss (08/05/08)