Quote:
Originally Posted by darklord700
How about adding the premium of downtown living to the driving cost? Say I want an averate 1600 sq ft living space in downtown, what premium would it cost comparing to suburb? A gazillions dollars by my calculation.
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That's where the real question lies.
I like living in a neighborhood with a "main street" for many non-commuting reasons, so there are a lot of lifestyle intangibles there.
For pure financial reasons though, lets say you can ditch a car, or keep a car twice as long because you never use it. I'm going to make up some numbers from my personal experience:
Car payment/depreciation/maintenance: $250/mo (conservative, as tires, oil changes and repair costs go down as well)
Gas: $200/mo (I went from driving ~25,000km/year to ~8,000km)
Parking/Transit fees: $150/mo (so that park and riders don't complain about my numbers)
That's $600/mo total, bare minimum.
For a 25 year mortgage, that's $130,000 more you can spend on a place.