From Location to Commute, Will This Affect Real Estate?

For those searching for homes in Northern Virginia, the location is always the main and important factor. However, there are a lot of specifications that would decide on a location. Those would be the exact neighborhoods, views, noise, schools, accessibility to shopping centers/ entertainment/ convenient stores/ healthcare and more. But there is one factor that will remain to be the most important specification and that would be Commute. Washington DC does have the most gridlock highways in the country and as regional planners suggest improvements to handle the current situation, people and employment still rains hard. Although from the perspective of Real Estate it is a blessing but in terms of commute it is already a complicated and challenging situation that would grow into a more challenging one. According to local news radio WTOP, the Washington DC region is primed to grow by more than 2 million people over the next 25 years, however the same report did highlight that the region needs to build more accessible roads to handle the influx. While as observed by the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, once we get beyond our current major roads projects to deal with the current concerns, there are “no improvements in the pipeline after this”. Based on the current situation we have, the concern of location in Real Estate may as well be commute. A worker’s commute being frustrating and lengthy can and will have a large impact on his or her lifestyle and even personality. Bearing this in mind, the consideration to trade other location features to commute features will definitely arise. Such commuting features may be:

• Accessibility to current or possible job centers that may include military bases.
• Convenient highway access
• Accessibility to mass transportation like Metrorail
• Proximity to airports – Dulles or Reagan National in Northern Virginia or BWI
• Consideration of toll vs. non-toll highways
• Carpool hours on certain highways that can affect commute
• Accessibility to secondary roads and upcoming road improvements
• Awareness of where “ bottlenecks” can be found

Would such considerations make a large change of location specifications to commute specifications in terms of Real Estate?