Every time I had to drive to the house, it was a huge pain in the ass. The agents wanted to meet in the middle of the week, so I'd have to drive in the morning, find a coffee shop or library to work from, drive to the house, go back to the coffee shop, then finally drive home. It was a couple hours+ dead time every day.
Where I ended up buying I took the train (working the whole way), rode my bike 15 minutes, viewed the house, rode back to the train station, and took the train home (working the whole way) - whole thing fit in a regular work day + lunch break.
Now if I lose my job and wind up having to commute, I'll still have the train time to work, do personal projects, etc. but if I'd been in a car I'd just be sitting there getting out of shape and wasting my time (and trashing the planet).
Even though living in the country means I'll definitely need to buy a car, it should (hopefully) only be one for our three person household, and the drive vs. train visits to view places was a helpful reminder of how much I hate car commuting.