Buyers Will Pay a Premium to Avoid Long Commutes

Compared to downtown home prices in the 1980s, the cost of city living today is stratospheric. A new study aims to find out what attracts the wealthy to city centers.

A new working paper by economists at Columbia University and the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a Brazilian think tank, summarized in their studies that “gentrification can be found in the shrinking leisure of high-income households.”

This means, though some economists dismiss the death of exurbs as a myth, that a significant number of households are tired of long commutes.

“As well-educated, high-income, dual-breadwinner households have put in longer hours at the office, they’ve likewise become starved for free time,” CityLab reports. “And since a shorter trip to work is one of the simplest ways to make up for lost moments, they’re willing to pay handsomely for it.”

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