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Bottom line folks come for schools and the big cost is not size of your house but amount of kids in school district. Little capes in Levitown are full of bus drivers and cops with plenty of kids. Some rich towns have very little kids in school district and taxes will be lower.
Towns like RVC, Garden City are a mystery to me as they have HUGE commercial tax bases yet many houses pay 30K a year taxes. Where does all that money go?
if you want cheap taxes and things walking distance Island Park is cheap in Nassau
This house is $4,000 a year taxes and walking distance to beach, park, elementary school and LIRR.
I like when you rolled the dice at end and that was your discount off check. Folks when they got snake eyes BOOED and folks when they got Boxcars cheered. You rolled the dice in a gold miners thing. Barry was a short little Jewish cowboy with a big hat.
Watch "Fresh Off the Boat" on TV based in the 1980s an they own a place called "Cattleman's Ranch" and it is just like Big Barry's
Big Barry himself showed up a couple of years ago as a singing contestant on one of those "star" competitions, I think it was America's Got Talent.
Known? By who? The ethnic white racists of Long Island? Look up the reality before spewing out nonsense.
Actually the violent crime rate in Valley Stream is a lot closer to Lynbrook to its east than it is to Laurelton to its west, just over that "imaginary" city line. Total crime is the opposite
Of course they are in Eagle scouts and rifle team, need to learn how to use a knife and a gun.
Lots of 13K taxed houses in the hood. And in IP I said if no kids in the school is best.
This person is a fool.... VS proximity to the city and transportation access will be its main driving force in its real estate valuation/appreciation over the coming years as the city gets more expensive people will continue to flock east as has been the trend over the last 20 years .... LOCATION x 3! and look at a crime map before you run your mouth next time
Thank you guys, at least the ones that answered our question and didn't devolve into some racial tit-for-tat, totally uncalled for:.
So anyways what I am getting is that taxes are so high because of corruption/too powerful public employee unions, and the tons of bureaucratic layers on the island resulting from the fact that it is carved out into a million eensy-Wendy fiefdoms.
Maybe if back in the 50s/60s when Long Island exploded in population - because of the increased availability of mortgages, the rising popularity of the car, and the good economy which created a big middle class that wanted to escape crowded tenements and high crime - consolidation of the school districts and the tiny little "villages" and "hamlets" could've worked and the taxation situation would have turned out differently, but now I don't think that will happen in our lifetimes. Long Island seems wierd in the fact that you have nice areas with good "name brands" right next to crappy poor areas, I've never seen that outside of a big city, in the suburbs it ain't usually so stark in contrast...it usually goes from good to bad on a gradient and a nasty area will usually have a "so-so" area in between it and a nice area that's like a buffer, like across the river from me in south Jersey between Camden (ghetto) and Audobon (nice middle class area) there is Oaklyn/Woodlynne (crappy, lower middle class, racially mixed, not desirable but definitely liveable). Long Island you have ghettoes right next to nice areas. I'm not from Long Island and I don't claim to be privy to the views of the residents, but I am going to take a wild guess that consolidation of districts based on location to lower taxes wouldn't work, because the residents of Garden City and North Merrick would probably rather keep their high taxes than send their babies to school with the kids from Hempstead or Roosevelt, respectively. That's not racism either IMO, that's just common sense.
As for the person that's inanely blathering on about diversity, as shocking as this may be to the "embrace diversity gestapo" that I've encountered on this forum, loving and desiring "diversity" in the place where you live is not a requirement for being a decent human being, and not wholly "embracing diversity" doesn't make you a racist. If you feel that everyone must live in a perfectly racially mixed area to be a non racist good person, I hope you apply that train of thought equally to all races and condemn all the Chinese folks that live in Flushing Queens or Chinatown in Manhattan as self segregating bigots, because if you think it's okay for other groups to want to live in a homogenous neighborhood but single out non-diversity loving whites as racists, that kind of makes you a racist, heh?
And FYI, in the northeast which experienced centuries of mass migration from Europe (some of which is still going on, plenty of Russians, Irish, Polish and former Yugoslavian people are still coming to the U.S. as we speak) most predominantly white areas are pretty diverse actually. You have Italians, Greeks, Poles, Irish, Germans, Hungarians, Russians, Ukrainians, Portuguese, Romanian, WASPS, and Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Jews, Atheists, Agnostics, Scientologists, Wiccans and tons of other groups I failed to mention and besides that you have diversity of opinion with Democrats, Republicans, Trade Union members, NRA members etc. I think that sounds pretty diverse to me, and I would say that make up describes most "white" areas in the vicinity of NYC, Philly, Jersey, Boston, Chicago and other places in the Northeast and Midwest. But to the people on this site who talk about diversity, what they really mean is less white people. I lurk these forums throughout the day when I'm bored and I was on the Philadelphia forum and someone described the neighborhood that I live in as "homogenous" when it has the makeup I described above, but then described another neighborhood as "diverse" when in reality it's 95% Puerto Rican Hispanic, many of whom come from the same party of Puerto Rico (they're all from Ponce). But I'm getting way way off topic here I just had to address that idiocy.
Anyways, thank you to the person who posted the link to the low taxed home in Island Park! I like it and reading about the area it definitely sounds like a spot my family would be interested in. My only concern would be that, the area is so close to the water, do you think the area might be cheap because of flood risk? Or because it sustained damage during the storm? We are liking a lot of Long Island's offerings, and since we only saw a little bit on our last trip up to the NYC area last weekend (besides a quick drive to see what Levittown and Massapequa were all about we spent most of last weekend looking at places in CT) we will be coming back up this weekend to see more of Nassau and Western Suffolk...we might actually want to meet with a Realtor and have him/her show us some properties...does anyone have a recommendation for a trustworthy realtor?
My studio in Manhattan was 200 square feet. So you had a 1,200 square foot studio. That is more like a three bedroom two bath bath place
1200 square feet is a pretty large home. There is 7 of us in 850 right now and it's just getting right now as the kids get bigger..1200 square feet would be MORE than enough for us
Of course they are in Eagle scouts and rifle team, need to learn how to use a knife and a gun.
Lots of 13K taxed houses in the hood. And in IP I said if no kids in the school is best.
Very funny about the Eagle scouts and the rifle team (jealous?).
East Rockaway is the worst of the lot if you're going to say "if no kids in the school are best." I know people who actually rented their house to tenants in East Rockaway and rented in Oceanside to get their kids away from East Rockaway SD.
1200 square feet is a pretty large home. There is 7 of us in 850 right now and it's just getting right now as the kids get bigger..1200 square feet would be MORE than enough for us
I don't know anyone who considers 1200 square feet more than enough space for 7 people. That's positively insane.
I don't think every family of 4 needs a 4000 square foot McMansion, but 1200 square feet, even in dense, expensive urban centers like Manhattan, is a large 2 bedroom or 3 bedroom place. Hardly what I would call "more than enough space" for 7 people.
How you possibly manage 7 people in 850 square feet is mind boggling to me, given that was the size of my 1 bedroom condo after I graduated college. It was spacious for a 1 bedroom, but still.
I want to leave LI ideally because the cost is just so high, but whenever I go visit another state, like on vacation, I always feel that these places do not have as much to offer. You don't need to look for towns with malls. Wherever you live, you can go a few minutes in any direction and find WHATEVER you want. Stores, restaurants, everything is right there. I noticed in other areas you have to drive, even if it's just 15-20 minutes to get to a shopping center or to restaurants. That really is not the case on most of LI. I can drive 5 minutes and have a million stores and restaurants to choose from. A lot of people say, yes LI is expensive, but you're getting a lot more for your money than other places in the country. I still think it is ridiculous and I am unable to buy a home here, but just figured I'd throw that in since you mentioned looking at the areas with malls. Lake Grove is a village and is very expensive, and Garden City is a really nice area, also very expensive. Valley Stream is known for its high crime rate comparatively. Typically, the north shore is going to be more expensive than the south shore, except for when you get into the Hamptons.
When you go on vacation next time, go to a near by average suburban area, not the vacation areas or tourist attractions. Suburban life in most other metropolitan areas of the US is pretty similar to life on LI - malls, chain stores, restaurants and a mix of local businesses. There are plenty of places where a few minute drive in any direction you can find whatever you need. If in the areas you visited you have to drive 15-20 minutes to get to a shopping center or to restaurants, that is not an average suburban location. This is similar to people who move to "the country", in an area where everyone owns 10+ acre lots and then wonder why there isn't a gas station or shopping center around the corner from their new house.
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