Anne Ruzicka said she did a lot of number-crunching before buying a home in Prairie du Sac in April. 

She previously lived in Spring Green and Mazomanie and missed the sense of community in a smaller town. She calculated the cost of commuting about 50 miles round trip to her job as senior education specialist at UW Hospital using the spring gas prices of $3.25 to $3.45 a gallon.    

But when gas reached $4 a gallon last month, she said, she began having regrets about moving from her Middleton apartment.

"I was betting on the fact that gas prices were going to level off," she said. "Had I read the handwriting on the wall a little better, I wouldn't have bought outside the (Madison area)."

High gas prices have caused homeowners to rethink their decisions on how far they should live from their jobs or children's schools.

Part of the attraction of living in a small town outside Madison used to be that home prices were more affordable than in the city and buyers could get more house for the money if they were willing to spend the time and money on commuting.

Even though pump prices have come down in recent weeks, the high cost of driving may be changing the outlook for buyers.

Despite the recent declines, gas prices still are more than 80 cents higher per gallon than the $2.91 price a year ago, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report. In Ruzicka's case, the price difference means nearly $500 a year more in the cost of gas.

"Before (home) price, buyers are looking for location now," said Madison real estate agent Mindy Allen. "That's one of the first issues they bring up when they tell me they're looking for a house."

It's too early to tell the total impact that gas prices will have on the local real estate market, said David Stark, president of Stark Company Realtors. If prices go down significantly, the effect may be temporary.

"Proximity to where you work and things you like to do is always a plus," he said. "To the extent that high gas prices make that more of a plus, we'll see. You can find anecdotal evidence that some people are thinking about that now."

Some statistical evidence

Statistics don't provide a clear-cut picture but are beginning to show that commuting costs may be affecting home sales, said Dan Miller, a Keller Williams agent who compiles local statistics for DaneCountyMarket.com, a Web site he runs with fellow agent Shawn Kriewaldt.

He said sales are down more in communities that are farther from Madison. Sales for the first five months of 2008 are down 36 percent in Baraboo, 34 percent in Evansville, 44 percent in Lake Mills and 50 percent in Poynette. In Madison, sales are down 27 percent on the East Side and 19 percent on the West Side.

Months of inventory levels — the total number of homes on the market divided by the average sales per month — also are higher in some outlying communities. Months of inventory in May were 20.7 for Baraboo, 19.8 for Evansville, 19.2 for Lake Mills and 18.8 for Poynette. In Madison, the figure was 7.7 for the East Side and 6.4 for the West Side.

Real estate agents say they're seeing the impact of gas prices on buying decisions.

Carrie Weaver, of Coldwell Banker Success, said her clients include a couple who retired to a large house in New Glarus but now must drive several times a week to Madison since the husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. They want to move closer to the hospital.

First Weber agent Ann Cardinale said she's working with a buyer couple who don't want to commute from Fitchburg to Madison.

In Cambridge, there's still a market for second homes, but the distance from Madison has hurt the primary home market, said Bette Hoesly, of Hoesly Real Estate. She said the cut-off line from Madison for many buyers is Deerfield, which is about 20 miles east of Madison.

"People perceive (Cambridge) to be farther than it is because it isn't four lanes all the way," she said. "People are choosing to relocate real close to their jobs rather than look outside."

High gas prices also have dampened the real estate market in Portage and Poynette, said agent Judy Braund, who works in Dane and Columbia counties.

"Prior to 2006, a lot of Madison workers were coming up to Columbia County to look for homes," she said. "There's very little of that right now. The buyers I'm working with want to stay in Madison."

Buyer attitudes

Leah and Craig Christianson bought a home in northern Green County near Belleville three years ago. Now, they've put it up for sale because of the long commute for Leah to her job as a speech therapist in the Waunakee School District. Craig works with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Madison.

"It's a great neighborhood and we love it," Leah Christianson said. "I just wish I could pick it up and pop it a little closer to my job. It's just the long commute from Belleville to Waunakee. The gas prices are so atrocious, it just makes us more anxious to sell."

Real estate agent Greg Palmer said he recently had seven home listings in Belleville — including the Christianson home. He said gas prices have meant reluctance by buyers to take advantage of lower home prices outside the Madison metropolitan area.

John Schneider, of Cottage Grove, is a real estate investor who buys foreclosed or short-sale homes then rehabilitates and sells them. He said high gas prices have caused him to tighten the geographic area for his investments.

"If it's outside of town, the price is going to be depreciated," he said. "It used to be an option for buyers to commute. That is now a much more difficult economic decision."

Steve Shea, a real estate agent since the 1970s, said the situation was worse 30 years ago when high gas prices and shortages hurt the home sales market outside of Madison.

"I don't think gas is going to be as much of an issue as it was in the '70s," he said. "The perception today is it's going to be more expensive to live in the rural communities when in reality the housing costs are less there."

Moving closer to work

Relocation to save money or time on commuting doesn't always mean moving to Madison.

Rick and Kristin Gage moved recently from Madison's West Side to Mount Horeb, where Rick is a teacher and Kristin works at Epic Systems in Verona.

"Convenience was a big thing," Kristin Gage said. "The biggest influence for us is that my husband teaches out here and our day-care center is here also."

For Anne Ruzicka, substituting her Jeep Grand Cherokee, which cost $120 a week for gasoline, for a Nissan Sentra helped ease the commuting expense of her move to Prairie du Sac.

But the commuting distance has changed her life in other ways. She said she enjoys hearing local bands and attending Madison festivals and Concerts on the Square.

"I don't come back in for any of that anymore," she said.