Location Affordability Portal Launched

The U.S. Departments of Transportation (DOT) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have launched the Location Affordability Portal (LAP) – a cost calculation tool that allows individuals to estimate housing and transportation costs in neighborhoods across the nation.

According to the LAP, nearly half of the average U.S. household’s budget is used to cover housing and transportation costs. Though housing costs, such as rent or a mortgage, are often easy to estimate, transportation costs are often less clear as they are likely to vary with changes in gas prices, public transportation rates, access to transit, street connectivity and other factors.

In order to help families make informed decisions about where to live and work, DOT and HUD have launched the LAP as part of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities to provide information about how housing and transportation costs differ across potential residential locations. The LAP uses two tools to provide users with access to cost estimates – the Location Affordability Index (LAI) and the My Transportation Cost Calculator (MTCC). The LAI is a database of predicted annual housing and transportation costs for a particular area, while the MTCC allows users to customize data based on their household’s unique characteristics, such as income, travel patterns and the number of cars owned by a household.

Interested in learning more? Check out the Location Affordability Portal to begin calculating the cost of housing and transportation in your neighborhood!