Why do people choose house over location?
Hi all, i've been struggling to understand this for a while now.
Currently living in a unit with young kids, need a bigger place in a few years but there's no affordable houses or even townhouses in our current area / school catchment.
We considered buying in a different suburb where houses are still within budget, but it would require major lifestyle changes - longer commutes to city/work, more dependence on car, kids needing to adjust to new school, life and friends. Pretty hard to justify major lifestyle changes just to live in a house.
And yet, i've seen so many in similar situations prefer the house over location - 9/10 times. And they end up spending 2-3 hours a day travelling for work/school and grocery runs.
Why do people usually pick house over location? Is this really an easy decision or am i missing something?