Given that the average price in the Seattle area is now $468,000, you really don't save much money if you have to spend it all on commuting. You won't be able to afford the ferry ride with your car, unless you have $6,000 to spend on boat rides and gas. You can Van Pool to most established employers but the bus rides are long if you need to get downtown from Southworth. Plan on 12 to 16 hour days for working and commuting. Is it worth it to save $100k or more? Probably not based on my personal experience of living in Seattle and then moving to Kitsap 19 years ago. The infrastructure on the Kitsap Peninsula is already at maximum for vehicular traffic and road improvements are few and long in duration. For instance right now there is a modification to the Tremont exit road in Port Orchard that won't be done until 2019. The place is a mass of construction, detours and delays if you drive anywhere. Highway 16 is two lanes and very crowded during all drive times. The Growth Management Act is slowing things down as well. Most new construction projects are mega-sized, with hundreds of cookie cutter homes and no through streets. The one smaller project in town near me was selling as fast as they could build. Many of the people moving to Kitsap are retirees who shop and buy very quickly. The area is not welcoming to new comers and most locals just wish we would all go back to Seattle so the population of the town could undouble itself. Kingston, Bainbridge, Poulsbo, Silverdale and Gig Harbor all have very high prices on real estate. Not as high as Seattle but there are no more 300k homes around that aren't dogs or manufactured. I would go North or South of Seattle to avoid excessive car sitting.