You don’t have to get far out of Seattle to reap the reward.
Your money typically goes further outside Seattle. But is that change in commute worth the extra money?
A new report from Zillow and HERE Technologies looked at exactly how much homeowners could save by adding 15 minutes on to their commute. As it turns out, it may be worth a bit of compromise.
In the Seattle metro, the typical home becomes 11.3 percent less expensive when it’s shifted 15 minutes away from downtown, or about $54,599. For renters that number is more like a 6.2 percent drop in monthly rent, or around $125 per month.
That places Seattle as one of the top cities that see the greatest home value savings by moving at least 15 minutes further from the city core (others include Washington, D.C. and Chicago).
Of course which direction you take your 15 minutes will affect both your commute and your home: Heading north or east from downtown puts you smack in some of the priciest and most sought after neighborhoods in the city right now.
So where’s the best bang for your buck according to Zillow? If you’re a homeowner that’ll be Highline, where the current median home value is $387,700, and the median commute time in a car during rush hour is 38 minutes.
Which makes the first-time-on-the-market, Mid Century Modern above, which is listed for $599,000, on the higher end of the market.
Almost any neighborhood south of Seattle is going to see more “bang for your buck” than the neighborhoods to the north.
Then again, if you want to remain a renter you should be looking elsewhere, according to Zillow’s report: The best “bang for your buck neighborhood” for renters are South Park and Georgetown, in the 98108 zip code. There the current median rent is $2,356, while the median commute is 27.2 minutes in rush hour.
By Zosha Millman, SeattlePI
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