Demand for Housing Near Transit

A recent MarketPlace story causes Seattle Blogger, Andrew Smith, to look at how much transit availability really effects real estate prices. Here's the punch line:

TOD in San Francisco's SOMA, photo by flickr user LA Wad

"The average American household spends 17 percent of their pre-tax income on transportation, 94 percent of this amount is for ownership and maintenance of cars. 


However when the data are disaggregated, drivable sub-urban households spend about 25 percent on transportation while walkable urban households only spend about 9 percent. 


This 16 percent difference represents well over a trillion dollars in households spending each year. If this spending was redeployed from cars to housing, education, and savings, it would be a major economic driver (excuse the pun)."


Here's how he gets there.