Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Family of 4, Chinese american. Children age 4 and 8. Currently living in Queens. Want to move out to Great Neck (in particular Village of Kensington). Like that it is a suburb but still walkable distance to train and shops. Shopping for house in the 1.2 to 1.5 range. Renovation will likely cost 400K.
Questions: (quite a lot)
1. Village tax. Will renovation cause taxes to increase tremendously. Taxes on the 1.2-1.5M house cost around 18-22 range including village tax.
2. Assuming annual income of approx 250-300K. Is the tax a wash? Saving city vs property tax in LI?
3. pros and cons of Kensington vs other villages? school, library, pools, parks?
4. Diversity in Kensington? Believe it or not, I am trying to move away from some other asians might have money but very un-educated or poor manners.
5. Is Great Neck / Kensington very class / status oriented? I saw a couple of houses and almost each one have a maid's room. Majority of the houses in that area are way above my price range.
6. School bus. Is it still driven by distance to school? I like North Dr or Arleigh Rd far away from trains yet still within a 10-15 min walk.
7. House value. I know a house shouldn't be an investment, but It is the largest allocation of our income. does Great Neck / Kensington retain value?
Before I would move to Kensington, I would go for Old Westbury or East Williston. Excellent schools, nice homes, a decent inventory in your price range, not tons but enough that you will have a choice. The shops and train will be lacking, however.
1. Great Neck has relatively low taxes for Nassau county, it has a large commercial tax base. So 18-22k is not that bad for a 1.2-1.5m house. Reno will drive up taxes if you do it legally. I saw a gut renov( or maybe it was a new construction?) Great Neck house with 40k (!) taxes, while neighboring houses of same size were sub 20k taxes.. but that is the exception rather then the norm. Most houses in Great Neck have relatively reasonable taxes compared to other north shore towns.
2. With your income and 2 kids, it will cheaper to live in Nassau from a tax stand point. I too am a family of 4 and just moved from Brooklyn to LI, and did all the calculations... Nassau is cheaper than nyc when you have more than 1 kid.
3. Kensington is centrally located in great neck, no signifcant cons
4. Forget diversity if you want to live in the North shore. Specifically Great Neck Kensington is all Jews, Persians and Asians.
5. Any North Shore town is class/status oriented, not unique to Great Neck/Kensington
6. School bus is not an issue in great neck, your kids will qualify (i grew up in Great Neck, and there always school buses)
7. House value will not be an issue, Great Neck has great schools, and Kensington is close enough to the Train station.
My personal situation, I was in a North Shore house hunt for the past 3 years. Needed to get out of Brooklyn, not worth it anymore with 2 young children. I strongly considered Great Neck, but in the end I decided against it because there are way too many Chinese... and I'm Chinese american myself, but there is a whole wave of rich mainland Chinese with their un-american/rude ways that just turned me off to returning to Great Neck where I grew up. So I ended up in East Hills (Roslyn school district), which reminded of me of Great Neck in the 80s before the asians and persians invaded.
We looked at great neck because it was close to little neck queens where we can do our grocery and close proximity to relatives in bayside. Close proximity to train was a plus but it wasn't a must as neither of us work in the city. School system is something we considered but definitely heard Jericho / Syosset has been schools than Great Neck.
I'm interest to hear more about your research as it seems we moving for very similar reasons. If you spend 3 years looking and move to East Hills there must be more quality there than Great neck.
Before I would move to Kensington, I would go for Old Westbury or East Williston. Excellent schools, nice homes, a decent inventory in your price range, not tons but enough that you will have a choice. The shops and train will be lacking, however.
Isn't Old Westbury in the Westbury school district (at least the areas with 1.2-1.5MM homes - along Jericho Tpke.)? It's been some years since I lived down that way but, as I recall, everyone sent their kids to private school because Westbury schools were a war zone. Has the school district improved?
Even at that, those 1.5MM homes are generally north of $18-22k in taxes.
Old Westbury has some nice areas, but they are all north of the LIE where prices really start at 2.5-3.0MM and go up from there. The area on the south edge turned to crap years ago and is a place I would suggest to avoid.
We looked at great neck because it was close to little neck queens where we can do our grocery and close proximity to relatives in bayside. Close proximity to train was a plus but it wasn't a must as neither of us work in the city. School system is something we considered but definitely heard Jericho / Syosset has been schools than Great Neck.
I'm interest to hear more about your research as it seems we moving for very similar reasons. If you spend 3 years looking and move to East Hills there must be more quality there than Great neck.
You can private message me if you like.
Thanks
If you don't work in the city and need the LIRR then I wouldn't move to Great Neck. Great Neck is super expensive because of the Port Wash train line - why pay so much money for something you won't even be using?
If you don't work in the city and need the LIRR then I wouldn't move to Great Neck. Great Neck is super expensive because of the Port Wash train line - why pay so much money for something you won't even be using?
Very ture. Its one reason I ended in East Hills because I don't work in the city and I didn't want to pay a premium to be near the Port Washignton LIRR line. It does help with home values though to be near that desirable LIRR line.
We looked at great neck because it was close to little neck queens where we can do our grocery and close proximity to relatives in bayside. Close proximity to train was a plus but it wasn't a must as neither of us work in the city. School system is something we considered but definitely heard Jericho / Syosset has been schools than Great Neck.
I'm interest to hear more about your research as it seems we moving for very similar reasons. If you spend 3 years looking and move to East Hills there must be more quality there than Great neck.
You can private message me if you like.
Thanks
I ended up in East Hills for a few reasons.
Roslyn SD, while not as great as GN South, is still considered excellent and is not that far behind.
Every Great Neck house I saw at the million dollar mark was horribly outdated and needed renovation.
And the prices are inflated by all the rich cash paying chinese, so on the houses I did put a bid on, I lost out.
For the same money, I have nice updated house with a huge lot in East Hills.
Like I mentioned in my first post.. GN has too many asians. I'm happy the Great Neck has more asians compared to when I grew up there (there were literally 6 asians in my class). But I think its reached a point where there are TOO many asians. GN S is like 50% asian. I think Roslyn SD is like 10% asian, which is a good number. As a chinese american, I think it builds character to be around non-asians and prepares you for life better.
My 1st choice was actually Port Washington, but the inventory in the more desireable parts was literally zero, and when a nice house was available it was gone in an instant. LIRR makes that area a very competitive RE market. Manhasset is nice but its out of my price range, a million bucks doesnt get you much there. So East Hills turned out well for me.
Roslyn SD, while not as great as GN South, is still considered excellent and is not that far behind.
Every Great Neck house I saw at the million dollar mark was horribly outdated and needed renovation.
And the prices are inflated by all the rich cash paying chinese, so on the houses I did put a bid on, I lost out.
For the same money, I have nice updated house with a huge lot in East Hills.
Like I mentioned in my first post.. GN has too many asians. I'm happy the Great Neck has more asians compared to when I grew up there (there were literally 6 asians in my class). But I think its reached a point where there are TOO many asians. GN S is like 50% asian. I think Roslyn SD is like 10% asian, which is a good number. As a chinese american, I think it builds character to be around non-asians and prepares you for life better.
My 1st choice was actually Port Washington, but the inventory in the more desireable parts was literally zero, and when a nice house was available it was gone in an instant. LIRR makes that area a very competitive RE market. Manhasset is nice but its out of my price range, a million bucks doesnt get you much there. So East Hills turned out well for me.
I moved here in May, and love it so far.
I agree - if you're Chinese it doesn't make sense to move to Great Neck because Great Neck South is already 50% Asian and trending up. Even if your kids have perfect grades and elite scores on their AP and SAT exams they are going to have a lot of trouble getting into a top 25 college because there are so many high achieving Asian students in Great Neck and colleges don't like accepting large numbers of students from the same school. If I were the OP I would definitely move off of the Port Wash train line (why pay $1.5mil for a house that would cost $750K off of the train line? It's insane) in a town that isn't so Asian. Colleges already discriminate against Asian students and it's only going to get worse so move somewhere where your kids can stand out.
I agree - if you're Chinese it doesn't make sense to move to Great Neck because Great Neck South is already 50% Asian and trending up. Even if your kids have perfect grades and elite scores on their AP and SAT exams they are going to have a lot of trouble getting into a top 25 college because there are so many high achieving Asian students in Great Neck and colleges don't like accepting large numbers of students from the same school. If I were the OP I would definitely move off of the Port Wash train line (why pay $1.5mil for a house that would cost $750K off of the train line? It's insane) in a town that isn't so Asian. Colleges already discriminate against Asian students and it's only going to get worse so move somewhere where your kids can stand out.
Thats exactly my rationale and you hit the nail on the head. In Great Neck, your asian kid will just be one of the many high achieving asian kids trying to get in the few spots in an elite college reserved for asians. Lets face it, brilliant asian kids are a dime a dozen, and the Ivies would rather have more Obama token types. I think its easier for an asian kid to stand out in a non-asian dominated school.
But at the same time, I'm not really a tiger dad, so I have low expectations of my kids.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
