I was contacted a week ago by Sarah Scrafford concerning her writing an article for me to place on ActiveRain. When I first started corresponding with her, I was a little reluctant to place another article on my website. After reading her article, I am glad that I was open to posting her article. As you can see below she has put a lot of time in this article and did a fantastic job on it. Her information is below if you would like to email her or read her regular post. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Skyrocketing fuel costs are competing for the world’s attention with global warming and its disastrous consequences, and both issues are definitely in the fray to decide how much your home is going to cost you in the near future. While environmental concerns are coercing people to opt for eco-friendly homes that conserve energy usage and are built using from renewable and sustainable resources, the gasoline price is dictating how often people take out their cars to either run errands or go places.

The concept of “Miles per House” was first introduced by the Urban Land Institute, a policy institute based in Washington to portray the connection between energy usage and housing costs in the near future. With energy sources becoming more and more precious by the day and the increasing pressure on mankind to ease up on its usage to slow down global warming, the premise of “House Miles” or “Miles per House” is being used to denote the number of miles or the distance your home is from your place of work, entertainment avenues, retail outlets and educational institutions.

The assumption is that the less this number, the more costly and more desirable your home is going to be because you’re going to be expending less energy and fuel to get to places that you normally drive to. This concept means that homes in urban locations will see prices shooting up while those on the outskirts will dwindle with hardly any takers at all.

But the larger picture cannot be ignored here, the one that takes into consideration the spending power of the people and the impact that fuel shortages and sky-high prices will have on middle and lower class citizens. A survey conducted by the Urban Land Institute three years ago found that the average American citizen spent 33 percent of their income on mortgages and 19 percent on transportation costs. With the connection between housing and transportation costs increasing in strength, more emphasis will be on finding homes that reduce your traveling expenses as much as possible, and people will be willing to pay more to save on costs in the long term.

Alternatives like public transport, smaller or hybrid cars that do not guzzle gas, car pools, bikes, and the willingness to walk to places are not going to replace the necessity that people feel to take their cars out, even over short distances, in the near future. Only when the price of fuel becomes too much of a burden that affects the ability to spend on even basic necessities will this situation change, and that’s when the demand for homes with less miles per house is expected to shoot up.

By-line:

This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of luxury homes for sale in Canada. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com