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Hi everyone,
We are looking to buy a single family house in LI.
1]We currently live in Queens and Let's assume we don't know anything about life in LI.
2] Financials: 500k cash, no debt, $320 car lease and phone bill plus monthly food expenses. Monthly income after taxes $5600
3] Currently one income, as my wife stays home to raise our 2 kids, age 4 and 1.5 years old.
4] Area needs to have good schools, commute is not an issue as I work in Queens and plan to work there for another 3+ years, my next future job could be in LI or NYC (my past jobs 2 have been in LI while 2 other ones in NYC).
5] By my calculations we can afford close to 700k house if we put a big down payment close to our available cash at hand.
6] looking for 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house.
Which areas can we afford? Any suggestions and some input from those with experience in this subject?
Regarding your financials. That 500K figure is what you are saying is available for a downpayment or that is all your cash or liquid assets? IF the latter, then no you can't buy a $700 house. Well, maybe you "could" but that would not be a wise thing to do.
I noticed that you also don't mention, car insurance, homeowners insurance, electric, water, gas (maybe oil), cable and internet, repairs, Dr. bill's for the kids, to name several. IF, the $500k is just dedicated to the down payment and you have other funds that is a different story.
5600 after taxes is a big factor in your budget. Sit down calculate out a budget and see what your comfortable with. If you have 500k cash saved your able to figure this out on your own safely. As said above there are lots of expenses. Figure at least 3k for a 400k mortgage and say 14-15ish in taxes. Then oil/gas , electric , homeowners, and general maintenance and whatever upgrades you’d like to do. And your monthly income is almost wiped out.
Check out Bethpage. It’s centrally located, it’s a nice community, good school, near a great park and you can get a decent house there in your budget. My advice to you would be to buy the cheapest acceptable house in a decent district. If I were you I wouldn’t put more than $400,000 down.
Regarding your financials. That 500K figure is what you are saying is available for a downpayment or that is all your cash or liquid assets? IF the latter, then no you can't buy a $700 house. Well, maybe you "could" but that would not be a wise thing to do.
I noticed that you also don't mention, car insurance, homeowners insurance, electric, water, gas (maybe oil), cable and internet, repairs, Dr. bill's for the kids, to name several. IF, the $500k is just dedicated to the down payment and you have other funds that is a different story.
The 500k is dedicated to the down payment. The rest of the bills will be paid from the monthly income. We are not big spenders and are not looking for fancy big houses, just something normal for a family of 4, looking to buy and stay long term or as long as we can, we are not looking to flip or anything like that. So when it comes to renovations it will be done in stages over a period of years.
Keep some cash in reserve. We bought a great house but we bought from a widower who had remodeled the kitchen about 20 years earlier. High quality cabinets didn’t need to be replaced but we bought furniture when we moved in and updated all the appliances. The next year the Central air unit needed to be replaced ($6000) The year after we needed a new hot water heater ($2000) and two mature trees needed to be taken down ($5000). We had cash reserves and were ok. Stuff happens.
Now is not a good time to buy. I would wait for prices to come down. You have a very decent down payment and a 700k house is going to come with a lot more when the prices go back to normal.
I would rent for a year, this would allow you the time to get to know Long Island better and decide where you wan to plant your roots.
Hi everyone,
We are looking to buy a single family house in LI.
1]We currently live in Queens and Let's assume we don't know anything about life in LI.
2] Financials: 500k cash, no debt, $320 car lease and phone bill plus monthly food expenses. Monthly income after taxes $5600
3] Currently one income, as my wife stays home to raise our 2 kids, age 4 and 1.5 years old.
4] Area needs to have good schools, commute is not an issue as I work in Queens and plan to work there for another 3+ years, my next future job could be in LI or NYC (my past jobs 2 have been in LI while 2 other ones in NYC).
5] By my calculations we can afford close to 700k house if we put a big down payment close to our available cash at hand.
6] looking for 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house.
Which areas can we afford? Any suggestions and some input from those with experience in this subject?
Born/raised and still live in a "nice" part of Queens, however most of my friends were in your situation financially (cops, fdny, teachers, nurses, etc, etc) as far as income so were priced out of the nice areas of Queens like bayside, whitestone, douglaston...but moved to lovely areas in Nassau like Plainview, Bethpage, Wantagh. Can get a decent house for $600K. Good schools compared to NYC. Do it!
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