Housing Virginia's SOURCEBOOK shows it costs more to commute depending on where you live. The report shows people living in Greene County spend an average 74 minutes a day commuting at a cost of more than $3,700 a year.
Compare that with Charlottesville residents who spend only 24 minutes commuting at a cost of just over $1,200 a year.
The NBC29 newsroom received the following release from Housing Virginia:
New Data Reveals Commuting as "The Hidden Cost" of Housing
Recently released data from Housing Virginia's SOURCEBOOK provides information on the combined costs of housing and commuting for Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and all other localities in Virginia. This information shows that a modest income family can spend over half of its income on commuting and housing costs combined. The national standard for combined housing and commuting costs is 34% of household income.
In the Charlottesville region, residents in Greene County spend an average of 74 minutes a day commuting, costing them $3,756 per year compared to residents in Charlottesville who only spends only 24 minutes commuting costing $1,260 per year. While the costs of transportation are comparable in these two localities the commuting costs are 3 times greater in Greene County.
When relating commuting costs to the median household income in Greene County, residents pay about 6.7% of their income for commuting more than 1.5 times the national standard of 4% and 2.3 times what a Charlottesville household spends 2.9%.
Lower income households are particularly hard hit by high housing and commuting costs. Again in Greene County, a household making 60% of median income will need to spend over fifty percent of their income to pay for the median cost house and commuting costs. Modest income households in Fluvanna County will need to spend 35.2% of their income for an average priced house and commuting costs. This is above the 34% national standard but well below what households in Albemarle County spend, 53.3%. For these lower-income households commuting costs can range from 4.8% of household income in Charlottesville to 11.1% of income in Greene County.
SOURCEBOOK, the most comprehensive and leading source of information on housing affordability, can be accessed on the Housing Virginia website at www.housingvirginia.org, This product is a unique joint venture between the Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech, the Virginia Association of REALTORS and Housing Virginia. The SOURCEBOOK is Virginia's only up-to-date source of housing affordability data for Virginia's localities and metro areas.
Click here for more information.
