from Long Island to Nazareth? (Allentown, Bethlehem: real estate, crime rate, mortgage)

[jessica25ny]

my husband & I have lived on Long Island for 25 years. we are both 25 years old, I am Italian & he is Italian and Puerto Rican. we want to move from Long Island in the next year or two and move into our own home and start our family. I absolutely do not want to leave NY but it is getting TOO expensive to live here. my parents' property taxes alone are $10,000/year.

a friend of mine lives in Allentown so i have visited PA a few times and I really like it there (not Allentown but PA, in general) it is cheaper than NY, the drive to NYC isn't bad at all, and it is somewhere I'd like to raise our children; when we do decide to have children.

I have looked at real estate online and the houses seem to be in our price range. I just wanted to know more about Nazareth... your thoughts & honest opinions? do a lot of New Yorkers move there? I know when I drive through PA, I see a lot of rural areas and I do not want to live somewhere rural. I want to move into the suburbs. therefore, I won't be that homesick from Long Island. what are the property taxes like?

I'd appreciate any information! especially from any New Yorkers that have moved there... thanks!

[toobusytoday]

You can search public records here for tax rates here: Assessment Home

I think our high taxes are the school taxes, not the property ones, but I could be wrong. We have them all lumped into our mortgage so I only think about them once a year. We have good schools so our school taxes are not low.

[2nd trick op]

In Pennsylvania, municipal (county, borugh(town) or city) property taxes are usually billed in March or April, school district property taxes are billed in July, and in the less-urbanized area, are generally about 150 to 200 percent of the municipal bill. Mine (assessed on a $75000 home in a small town in Luzerne County (County seat is Wilkes-Barre)) have risen from about $1100 to about $2500 over the past fifteen years.

Due to an unstable job market, I've lived and worked in several locations in the Lehigh Valley over the past six years, and with one exception (Easton) there aren't many communites, including the City of Allentown which has a number of better neighborhoods, thst I could not recommend. The xenophibia affiliated with Hazleton, about an hour's drive upstate, never took root down here.

[jessica25ny]

thanks for the input!

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by jessica25ny

I have looked at real estate online and the houses seem to be in our price range. I just wanted to know more about Nazareth... your thoughts & honest opinions? do a lot of New Yorkers move there? I know when I drive through PA, I see a lot of rural areas and I do not want to live somewhere rural. I want to move into the suburbs. therefore, I won't be that homesick from Long Island. what are the property taxes like?

My brother pays $3,006/year in Bethlehem for an 80 year old duplex with 1 bathroom, 3 bedrooms near Moravian college. Generally people move to PA for the low real estate taxes compared to NJ or NY.

But the low taxes come with a price. There are some New Yorkers that think the price is too high.

It is not a bad drive to go back to Long Island if you are going a half a dozen times a year. You can ride the bus for 2 hours to Manhattan for about $45 round trip from Bethlehem. The base price for a commuting ticket on the bus from near the ABE airport is $27.40 per day (assumes you will make 15 round trips within in a 30 day period. If you do more than that you just buy a new set of tickets. There are about 2 buses a day that go to the financial centers on the Jersey side of the Holland tunnel. All total over 50 buses on a weekday go from the Valley into NYC.

It is a long commute. AMTRAK cut out the trains about 10 years after it was formed in 1971.

[toobusytoday]

Another difference is that many of the small towns that surround the cities may not be suburbs as you are used to. They are for the most part, towns that were formed hundreds of years ago, not to serve as bedroom communities for commuters, but as towns. The difference is there are not going to be a lot of chain stores or services. The boroughs themselves most often have people whose families have lived there forever and are not that eager to welcome newcomers. There's plenty of shopping for me but it's not like other places where we've lived where you can choose between multiple shopping options.

This on-line newspaper should give you a flavor of Nazareth. Nazareth, PA Patch - News, Sports, Events, Businesses & Deals

[P Bethlehem]

A lot of New Yorkers are moving to Nazareth(more so lower Nazareth closer to Bethlehem) and outter Easton area. Also most of the New Yorkers moving to Nazareth are on the wealthier side building larger homes and not really moving into older or pre existing homes. Nazareth is still a some what small town, incredibly quiet, people who have been living in nazareth are typically more sheltered than other areas and it gets more and more rural as you go farther out. Nazareth basically has no real urban center, unlike Easton, Allentown and Bethlehem(none have an urban center comparable to most big cities)...

IF you want to move and are in your mid to late 20s, move to Bethlehem thats where most of the people your age are, and the area has the most the area really has to offer all in fairly close vicinity. Bethlehem has the lowest crime rate out of A.B.E(Allentown, Bethlehem,Easton). It has better schools(Bethlehem Area School District), the best community college in the area, it is close to Lafayette College, host Lehigh University and Moravian College, has a nice and growing downtown area. Hospitals to check are St Lukes and Lehigh Valley Health Network( Lehigh Valley Hospital/Muhlenberg apply specifically to Bethlehem). Route 22 will easily link you to 78, 33, 309 and 476 directly.

Property taxes you can expect to pay a third of what your paying now , I'll guestimate around 3-4000 a year.

If you consider allentown, avoid downtown allentown altogether, although its cheap, its cheap for a reason. For schools go for the parkland area school district and do not deviate.

I would best describe the area as a good family area, its a pretty ideal place to have or start a family. I wouldnt move here if you are single, expecting exciting nightlife, or an expansive range of options of things to do(although its not bad), as the area is really just now starting to expand on both, not saying its terrible but its no NYC or even parts of Jersey.

[kinghaas]

Check out the Easton area (includes Forks Township, Palmer Township and Williams Twp). Easton is the closest area to NYC that you can have the lowest taxes compared to NJ or Long Island (although the City of Easton itself is highest taxes for the area). I am originally from Long Island (although moved here as a kid), but two of my immediate neighbors ), both originally from NY work in NYC and take the bus daily. The good thing about Easton is a non-peak hour trip by car to Manhattan can take as little as an hour (peak with traffic can take a long time depending on accidents, etc).
I actually went to Long Island last weekend for my kid's tournament in Farmingdale (left at 5am saturday and actually made it there in just over an hour and a half...I do have a little lead foot), but way back on sunday night was a LONG ride back.
all in all it is a very good area. you would be surprised how many people live here and work in nyc. If you are still contemplating it I would not suggest anything west of Bethlehem Twp (PA). although it is a little cheaper the further west you got from NJ border, it really starts to add time onto the commute. I live in the old orchard section of palmer township (type in old orchard, pa in city data..has it's own site). I live in a colonial with 4 bedrooms. one similar one down the street from me just went on market for $300k. My taxes (local, school and county) are around $6000 per year....not too bad.