Newsday graph shows LI Communities in Serious Decline

[OhBeeHave]

Originally Posted by Forest_Hills_Daddy

I think you and OBH are talking about the same thing. She might be implying that while LI has a high % of home ownership, it has by and large become a bedroom community of NYC with homeowners forced to commute a long way to work just to afford the high cost of living (not to mention being at the mercy of economic trends affecting NYC).

Yes. Thank you. If NYC weren't a driving force in the LI economy, things would be very different in terms of ownership rates and home values.

[primeline31]

31 year Hicksville resident and devoted garage saler here. I think that the figures are misleading. Just because the home ownership figures are down does not mean that the town is in decline at all. I drive ALL over Hicksville, into all the corners, when going to garage sales.

Of all the thousands of homes I’ve driven past, I can only recall one that was and still is boarded up. This particular home is completely run down and has been uninhabited for many, many years. There are NO OTHER boarded up homes anywhere in town.

If the census data shows that homeownership is down, it is only because of an increase in these homes being bought up and turned into rentals. When the housing market tanked and the prices dropped, investors jumped in and bought up those homes to rent out or to rebuild and sell. Remember, when a home goes into foreclosure, the people still have to find someplace to live and if you can no longer get a mortgage, you rent. Have a family and a pet? Where are they going to go? Not into an apartment, which are in desperate short supply anyway, but into a rental home, one that used to belong to another displaced family. What’s wrong with that? The kids still go to the same school district and they get to keep their pets.

Don’t trust figures like those in the graph. If you are considering an area, go and visit it yourself. Or better still, RENT for a while. If you like the area, find a home. If not, move on. You won’t have to deal with selling it.

[corky101]

This decline could also be a result of people finding work elsewhere, so they rent an apartment and rent out their LI houses. I know personally two people who did this. And in both cases the houses were not rented to illegals.