MADISON - Anne Ruzicka thought her commute wouldn't be too bad when she moved from her Middleton apartment to a home in Prairie du Sac in April.

With gas at $3.25 to $3.45 a gallon, she figured she could swing the 50 mile round trip to her job as a senior education specialist at the University of Wisconsin Hospital.

But then gas prices rose to $4 a gallon, leaving Ruzicka with a bit of buyer's remorse.

"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)."

Gas prices are starting to put a damper on home sales in some rural areas as prospective home buyers look to limit their commuting costs, real estate agents said. Many want to be close to work or their children's schools.

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

Keller Williams agent Dan Miller compiles sales statistics for DaneCountyMarket.com, a Web site he runs with fellow agent Shawn Kriewaldt. Sales for the first five months of the year are down in Madison, by 27 percent on the East Side and 19 percent on the West Side, he said.

But, they're down even more in outlying communities: 36 percent in Baraboo, 34 percent in Evansville, 44 percent in Lake Mills and 50 percent in Poynette.

The extra distance adds up. Gas prices are an average of 80 cents per gallon higher than a year ago, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report. For Ruzicka, that means her commute will cost nearly $500 more per year. To cope, she recently traded her Jeep Grand Cherokee for a Nissan Sentra.

Real estate agent Judy Braund has seen gas prices hurt sales in Portage and Poynette, two of the communities she covers in Columbia County.

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

Carrie Weaver, of Coldwell Banker Success, said her clients include a couple who are commuting several times a week from New Glarus to Madison for the husband to be treated for Alzheimer's disease. They want to move closer to the hospital.

Leah and Craig Christianson recently put their home in northern Green County near Belleville up for sale. They want to be closer to Leah Christianson's job as a speech therapist in the Waunakee School District. Craig Christianson works in Madison for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"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."

They're not the only ones who feel that way. Their estate agent, Greg Palmer, said he recently listed six other homes in Belleville too.