With average commute times reaching record highs and mounting evidence linking long drives to adverse health outcomes, researchers are increasingly questioning what forces are pushing Americans farther from their workplaces. New research from Florida International University’s College of Business (FIU Business) points to homeownership — long seen as a social good — as a key and often overlooked factor.
The research by Zhenguo (Len) Lin, a real estate economist at the Hollo School of Real Estate at FIU Business, helps explain why commutes keep getting longer — and why the burden may be falling most heavily on homeowners.
In the recent study examining commuting behavior, to be published in the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Lin and his colleagues found that homeowners spend significantly more time commuting to work than renters, even after accounting for income, wealth, education, household characteristics and geography. On average, homeowners commute about 6.9% longer, adding more than 15 extra minutes per week compared with renters.
The findings are based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a long-running, nationally representative survey that tracks U.S. households over time. The researchers analyzed commuting patterns from 2011 to 2017 and tested the results using multiple statistical approaches to rule out alternative explanations.
The driving force behind the gap, Lin said, is affordability.
“As housing prices rise, especially near job centers, people who want to buy homes are pushed farther away,” Lin said. “They keep driving until they qualify for a mortgage.”
The study describes this phenomenon as “drive-’til-you-qualify.” Unlike renters, who can more easily relocate, homeowners are tied to a fixed location once they buy. That reduces job mobility and often locks them into longer commutes, particularly in large metropolitan areas where housing near employment hubs is increasingly out of reach.
The effect is not evenly distributed. Lin’s research shows that longer commuting times are most pronounced among lower-income and lower-wealth households, minority homeowners, and households living in metropolitan areas.
“These groups tend to have fewer resources for down payments,” Lin said. “That means they are more likely to be pushed to the urban fringe, where commuting times are longer.”
Long commutes have been linked in prior research to higher stress levels, poorer physical and mental health, lower productivity and reduced overall life satisfaction. Lin said his findings suggest commuting time should be viewed as a hidden cost of homeownership — one that is rarely factored into housing policy discussions.
“For decades, homeownership has been promoted as an unqualified social good,” Lin said. “But when affordability, transportation and land-use policies are misaligned, there can be unintended consequences.”
The implications are especially relevant for fast-growing regions such as South Florida, where rising housing costs, limited land availability and car-dependent infrastructure converge. Lin argues that reducing commuting burdens will require coordinated investments in public transportation, housing affordability and smarter urban planning.
“If we want people to live healthier lives,” he said, “we need to think not just about where they live, but how long it takes them to get to work every day.”
Lin conducted the study with Mingzhi Hu of the Chinese Academy of Housing and Real Estate at Zhejiang University of Technology and Yingchun Liu of G. Brint Ryan College of Business at the University of North Texas.