Rather than the snarky response, I’ll answer: closer is likely to be impossibly more expensive for the requirements OP needs (e.g. living area, number of bedrooms or similar).

Maybe. But sign a new lease (or mortgage!), pay moving expenses, relocate away from friends/family/social network/what have you and then the job disappears after 18 months, leaving you to relocate again....

So not parent, but no. I lived as close as we could afford, roughly 20km away. Outside rush hour you can to the trip in 15 minutes, during rush hour it's 35 minutes, assuming no accidents (and this is a highly accident prone area where traffic would block up completely every other week).

Taking a 15% cut, which allowed us to move further away severely reducing our cost of living, bring us closer to family which can help out if needed. It has reduce stress, ensures that our child doesn't need to be in the care of after school programs longer than she needs. The reduced cost of living, reduction in stress and the flexibility that we're able to offer my wife's employer was made a huge, positive, difference in our lives, well worth the 15%.

> But wouldn't it have been cheaper to move to a place closer to the office of your previous employer

it might not be the sort of place they want to live. it also negates a lot of the higher salary argument if a lot more of it is going into paying rent or mortgage.

It’s not just that it’s more expensive COL but if you’re buying then you’re taking a 30 y mortgage that may not be so easy to divest when the next round of cuts come and you find yourself let go anyway.

Not really in VHCOL areas. You can get by on less, if you are planning your life around your job, for sure.

But for example if your office is Midtown Manhattan, the equivalent lifestyle to own a home for your family in walkable Manhattan vs long subway commute Brooklyn vs longer commuter rail suburbs vs extreme commute exurbs is staggering.

You can buy an entire exurban home for the incremental cost to upgrade from Manhattan 2bed/1.5bath to 3bed/2.5 bath.

My parents & in-laws each have 3bed/2.5 bath homes outside of Manhattan commute range, but within tolerably unpleasant driving commute to Stamford/Greenwich. That is - they are in commuter range of where commuters live / satellite office are located.

The combined values of those 2 homes might buy a single family sized apartment in Stamford, an ok 1 bedroom apartment in yuppie Brooklyn, or a kind of dumpy studio in Manhattan.

A lot of these answers seem to boil down to "I would simply have more money".