I know a couple people in NYC who do something like this. It works fine for two smallish niche groups: well-off childless couples who prefer not to spend much time in their city, or very well-off couples with children.

Single people don't want to spend their weekends alone in a farmhouse, and 3+ person families don't want to live the bulk of their time in a studio apartment. Meanwhile, that 300-500k dollar farmhouse could put your kids through private school or good colleges.

300-500k seems really high for a farmhouse unless it comes with a lot of land.

Within weekend distance of NYC?

EX: http://mls.catskill4sale.com/idx/details/homes/b253/34760/4-... 200k, 10br house ~2h from NYC depending on traffic. Basically as soon as you step past reasonable daily commutes prices really fall.

It has four bedrooms, not ten. You can't reasonably fit ten bedrooms in 2912 square feet of living space.

3,000 sq feet is 20.8 rooms at 12' by 12'. Sure larger rooms, walk in closets, or wasted hallways could eat that up. But the real issue is there are only 2 bathrooms.

Would anyone really consider that a farmhouse, when it has only 0.68 acres of land?

Because you only care about the farmhouse and not the land.

You can rent land to farmers. Depending on the land and location in NY, you can rent it for $20-$80 an acre.

USDA agricultural statistics service

https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/E0F5EB36-3313-3D7B-...

forget YOU commuting to the city - with 10 bedrooms you can provide free rooms for YOUR employees to come to you :-) (assuming you own a startup and have employees)

A two hour daily commute is like 12% of your waking hours crumpled and thrown away. That sounds like hell.

Two hours is a long time! Sit around for the two hours doing nothing, you'll see.

A two hour commute (assuming one hour each way) is very very common. I did it for years when I lived in the suburbs and worked downtown. About an hour door-to-door each way, with the train ride being about 45 minutes of that.

I did that exact commute for 8 years. I've never been so happy as when I was finally able to ditch it. The new commute is 20 minutes (one way), with WFH days and hours flexible enough that I can usually avoid rush hour.

I did it for years too and I would never do it again, no matter what the pay is. I guess it is a matter of options and taste, but I find commute and working in an office every day quite close to living in hell.

Average US commute is 25 minutes (one-way).

http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/al...

2 hours typical for workers in NYC that live outside from neighboring burbs.

Two-hour weekly commute.

I have done hour each way commutes for many years, and while I don't miss it, it's not nearly that much of a waste. It's not "sit around doing nothing" (though, I wish I had two hours a day to sit around doing nothing - it'd be fantastic). It's time people spend listening to music, reading, napping, catching up on e-mail, playing games.

As much as I like currently not having a commute, it was certainly not time that was "crumpled and thrown away".

You obviously didn't drive if you were reading, napping, catching up on email, playing games (at least I certainly hope not). At least within the US, a typical commute (with the exception of very large cities such as NYC, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago, which have large public transportation systems) involves spending time driving their own car, which essentially prohibits any activity other than listening to music, and maybe talking on the phone. So yes, it's wasted time for most of us.

You can also get away with podcasts and audiobooks, which have really prevented me from seeing it as a simple waste of time.

+1 for Podcasts and Audiobooks. I get through ~2 books a month and a host of podcasts. It's not an ideal use of time, but if scheduled correctly it can at least be additive.

I'm not saying its the case in Switzerland, but I get a ton of work done on my occasional three hour train commute. Driving definitely sucks though.

I currently commute 2 hours each way. It's not as bad as it sounds. If you happen to be able to afford to live close to work, consider yourself lucky.

Do you do anything in particular to make use of the time during the commute besides just concentrating on driving, listening to music, or daydreaming? I struggle with long commutes since I inevitably feel like I'm wasting the time.

As someone who did this for some time. Get out.

I, like you probably, think that it's not "too bad", but once you're away from this practice, you'll realize that you were wasting so much valuable time.

I work remote and my voluntary commute (could work from the house) is 7 minutes to an office in town where I work every day. My colleagues Live around the Bay area and pay exorbitant amounts and/or drive 1.5-2 hours each way into the office. My quality of life is much better on that front.

Music, NPR

The opportunity cost of a four hour commute is nuts though. That's half a fulltime work shift!

My commute is a little less than that - but I don't sit around doing nothing! It's time to work without interruptions.

That would be the best of city living (practical, all amenities in walking distance, low maintenance, social), and the best of rural living (bucolic, silent, spacious, reserved).

It's much better to separate it out than try to combine it in one suburban house.

How do you account for all the wasted space when the houses aren't in use? The extra costs?

Same way you account for the time your car is not being driven - you consider the total cost of ownership vs benefits and your ability to afford it.

This is a bad analogy missing the point that ZeroFries was making. A car's lifespan is mostly determined by mileage. When a car is not being driven its condition and value is largely unchanged. It is not analogous to a vacant house. If you drive a car twice as much of the time it will have to be replaced nearly twice as soon.

>A car's lifespan is mostly determined by mileage.

This is far less true in regions with snow. Assuming you drive the vehicle in the winter, a non-trivial contribution to "wear and tear" on the car is rust which occurs even if the car isn't driven a lot. (Cars are far better in this respect than they used to be but rotted out fluid lines etc. is still very much a thing.)

I'm in the snowbelt and well aware of this. Mileage (at a given city/highway mix) is still the biggest factor presuming the car is getting some minimum duty cycle. I said "mostly," not that the number of winters is nontrivial.

If you only drive 5,000 miles a year, sure, but that's not typical.

Beyond using 10k/yr as a rule of thumb for average duty cycle mileage is a horrible indicator of vehicle wear. Engines are worn by cold start cycles, transmissions are worn by shifting, brakes get worn by stopping and suspension components get worn by potholes, etc.

Newish used cars with ~200k on them are usually good buys because often times it's someone who used it for work (salesperson, etc.) and just ground out the highway miles (which are nearly free from a wear and tear perspective)

Except I never made the claim that nominal mileage objectively indicates vehicle wear. All I'm claiming, is that mileage is the largest factor. It doesn't matter if your driving wears out a car in 300,000 miles and my driving burns out a car at 80,000 miles. Your miles are your miles and my miles are my miles.

If we somehow manage to magically share a car, it's not going to last a lot longer than if we're wearing out our own cars at our respective rates (mine faster than yours).

But you reinforce the point that the car sitting in the parking lot or garage is not simply an over-provisioned resource by reason of being idle. If your usage patterns are so different than mine it's unrealistic to expect a configuration where we would be able to share a car.

Car-sharing has many benefits, but a car is still worth more than two half-cars.

It's accounted for in the value of the land and the farmhouse, which the owner has paid for.

Airbnb

Or that a Doner Kebab in Zurich is 20 dollars and up. That's US salary alright bit US price of living? Hell no

As a regular Zürich Döner eater, I'd be curious to see these fabled 20$ equivalent Döners. Mine are always in the 10/11CHF range (~$11).

those were a bit higher prices mentioned, but generally prepared food in Suisse is super pricey (especially if you pay bills for more than yourself only), and in the same time food leaves much to be desired when compared to some neighbors (France, Italy).

most common things expat complain here about - 1) going out becomes a rare experience if you are not single - just too expensive compared to anywhere else in the world; 2) the need for adjustment to swiss ways of doing everything (ie strict rules of living in apartments, massive bureaucracy and so on) - you need to change, they won't; 3) finding accommodation is often as hard as landing a job (which is often super hard, too much global competition) - they just don't build new housing, so prices went through roof and your resume and salary and skin color and nationality and no-pets-no-small-kids and everything needs to be perfect, otherwise goodbye. since there are 100-200 other people applying for same place; 4) having kids is prohibitively expensive, international schools are either paid by your employer or you put your kid to (good) public ones. You need to be seriously well-off for kids, or compromise on couple of things.

I live in Geneva, I love it here, but I am not here for salary. You can get much more value for your salary elsewhere in Europe for doing same job as here. Munich, London and couple of other places would work better. But I am a mountain freak, having Chamonix as 45 minute drive from apartment is priceless for weekends and having France 2 kms away makes spending a bit more bearable.

In Munich you pay 4.00 - 4.50 EUR. That pretty much erases any advantage of Zurich vs German salaries.

It's more like 5.50 EUR