Buyers Keep Asking Me About Traffic

A few years ago, a couple asked me to sell a house they loved. Nothing was wrong with it. They were selling anyway.

When they moved to Knoxville, they shopped with one number in mind, which was the drive to work. They got it. But everything they loved doing sat 45 minutes away, at the worst hour of the day. Night after night, it came down to the same line. Honey, I am not getting back in the car.

The house was right, and the decision was still wrong. Nobody warns you that both things can be true.

This year, buyers keep asking me about traffic. In twenty years, that is new. And the question has changed. It is not how long the drive takes. It is whether there is another way home when the main road stops. One buyer told me flat out that he would not cross a certain bridge. A friend had already warned him about it.

It is not about distance anymore. It is about time stuck in the car. From Farragut, the same drive downtown can take 30 minutes or 50, depending on when you leave. An hour a day is about 250 hours a year. That is six weeks of work, spent in a lane.

I understand it better than I would like to admit. My daughter trained at a gym 35 minutes from our house for seven years. The first year, dinner was made before we ever left the house. By year seven, dinner came through a car window. You sign your kid up for a sport to keep her healthy, and then you hand her fast food through a window. What is a gourmet kitchen worth on a night like that?

So I give every buyer the same homework. Drive the commute at 8 in the morning, then drive it home at 5. The map tells you the distance. The driver's seat tells you the truth. And when I show a home, I point out whether the neighborhood has a second way out, because the day the main road is blocked, that matters more than the quartz countertops.

Sometimes the honest question is simple. Is the extra bedroom worth an hour in the car?

My couple sold and bought again halfway between work and the life they had been missing. The new place is a little farther from work, a little smaller, with less yard. I have rarely seen two people happier with less house.

My favorite part is the kitchen. It is smaller too. They cook in it almost every night.

If a move is on your mind, or someone you care about is weighing one, call me before anyone falls in love with a kitchen. I want you in the right house and the right spot, the kind that hands you your evenings back.

Talk With Susan Today — 865.591.9204

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