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Looking into purchasing a house in western nassau. I've looked around and it seems there's a few towns with homes around our budget (350k with taxes below 9k). We don't have kids yet but will in the future so school districts matter a bit.
I was hoping you could chime in on the towns you're familiar with with pros/cons or anything you can think of. Especially areas to avoid in these towns if the kids are sent to a less desirable school district than the rest of the town. Any information would be greatly appreciated!
Lynbrook
Valley Stream
Malverne
Westbury
Baldwin
Anywhere else you can think of
Looking into purchasing a house in western nassau. I've looked around and it seems there's a few towns with homes around our budget (350k with taxes below 9k). We don't have kids yet but will in the future so school districts matter a bit.
I was hoping you could chime in on the towns you're familiar with with pros/cons or anything you can think of. Especially areas to avoid in these towns if the kids are sent to a less desirable school district than the rest of the town. Any information would be greatly appreciated!
Lynbrook -- Good schools for the most part, but avoid homes zoned in Malverne or East Rockaway SDs; Lynbrook 20 SD is the best of the bunch; only problem with Lynbrook is very high Village taxes on top of the County taxes -- be careful as many times the RE agents don't mention the Village taxes at all when they are quoting how much the taxes are and only mention the County taxes -- always demand to know what the Village taxes are when looking in Lynbrook
Valley Stream -- Good schools; houses in Malverne zoned for VS13 are sought after compared to the ones zoned for Malverne; VS also has homes zoned for Hewlett SD which is even better
Malverne -- poor school district, send kids to private school
Westbury -- same as Malverne
Baldwin -- I heard the school district was improving so that's good, but you need to check it out for yourself
Anywhere else you can think of
When I was looking in 2012, Oceanside had a lot of inventory in that range. Since Oceanside isn't a village, the taxes will be lower than some of the areas you mentioned.
Westbury is a low-performance school district but Malverne schools are not. Malverne schools just have a bad reputation/perception, you can research data from just about ANY source and discover that Malverne's academic performance is actually decent and on-par with other middle class long island districts.
As for Westbury, if you are west of Ellison Ave then you are in Carle Place schools which are considered good. If you buy within the Salisbury neighborhood of Westbury then you are in East Meadow schools which have good-performance too. It's a shame for Westbury b/c most of Westbury is actually pretty, the schools in conjunction with the high village taxes you pay just spoil it.
Westbury is a low-performance school district but Malverne schools are not. Malverne schools just have a bad reputation/perception, you can research data from just about ANY source and discover that Malverne's academic performance is actually decent and on-par with other middle class long island districts.
As for Westbury, if you are west of Ellison Ave then you are in Carle Place schools which are considered good. If you buy within the Salisbury neighborhood of Westbury then you are in East Meadow schools which have good-performance too. It's a shame for Westbury b/c most of Westbury is actually pretty, the schools in conjunction with the high village taxes you pay just spoil it.
Very good information for the OP. Buying in the Westbury area does not necessarily mean Westbury schools. There are neighborhoods that are exceptions.
I have a house in Valley Stream, Gibson area (SD24). Fixing it up to rent and probably sell in the nearish future. Here's what I know about my area:
Houses in the SD that's zoned for Hewlett schools pay higher property taxes. If this is important to you, avoid SD 13. I'm on the border of the two districts.
I'd avoid the area a couple of miles northwest of here by Merrick Road and the Queens border.
The zip code 11581 is shared by North Woodmere and South Valley Stream. Valley Stream has 3 zip codes.
You don't say where you and your spouse work. If it's NYC, you can't do much better than Valley Stream. It's geographically 17 miles from Midtown Manhattan.
Some areas are closer to the train than others. My house happens to be walkable to the LIRR station and there's a bus on the corner. Valley Stream is a big town that has two LIRR stations (Gibson & Valley Stream).
The good part of this area is it's walkable to almost anything, and almost as accessible as Queens.
I personally like Malverne better than Valley Stream. It has more of a small-town feel, and it's almost as close to the city. HTH.
Last edited by manekeniko; 07-05-2014 at 02:56 PM..
not sure which of these towns would have a house with $9K or less in property taxes. I just took a quick look at the towns you mentioned and saw nothing under $11K.
Try to stick to Lynbrook schools. The rest aren't that great. I grew up in VS(SD 13) and you ouldn't pay me to move back. Might as well move to Rosedale/Queens because VS is just an extension of it now.
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