Garden City or Manhasset? (Oceanside, Rockville Centre: house, buy, best school districts)

[Jdawg8181]

Originally Posted by hitmantb

The "6 different train station" thing is a major disadvantage, not advantage. Ultimately you are still within walking distance of ONE of them, not six. And as a result trains for Garden City are split into two lines with a lot of local stops, greatly slow down the process AND less frequent services on top of it.

If you miss a train in Manhasset, the next one is 10-15 minutes away. Garden City? Try 20-30 minutes and throw in the transfer at Jamaica non-sense, the Port Washington line is vastly superior. You save at least 30 minutes a day round trip (that is 2.5 hours a week, 5 hours if you are a working couple) going from Manhattan to Manhasset, that is why that town is priced higher for equivalent properties. The demographic is stronger as well with $145K vs $115K annual income, school is a tier better as well with a SAT score of 1182 vs Garden City's 1127, which is a tangible difference.

The numbers don't lie. I dropped Garden City from my list of areas after doing a door-to-door commute there. Go with the Great Neck / Manhasset / Port Washington's if you work in Manhattan. And if you can afford to live in those areas you probably don't work from 9-5, and the gap in commute time really goes up at later hours.

A very common scenario, you left the office at 7PM, from Penn to Garden City station you have two trains 45 minutes each, one involves a transfer at Jamaica (imagine if you miss it). Merillon Avenue? There is literally ONE train at 37 minutes. Manhasset? Three trains, two at 30 minutes each, one at 37 minutes, all direct trains.

Even if you don't work in Manhattan or you don't work late or you stick to the schedule 100% of the times, this is still a real impact on property value, and you can see the demographic/school difference. The gap will widen as the years go by.

Where I live, after 8:00pm, the trains start coming/leaving every hour. It's so awful.

[azzurrony]

Hitman,

It sounds like you are trying to justify your purchase. That's fine, but make sure you paint the picture correctly.

1. It's true that the trains in GC are slower, but most people in the Estates and Western section have their choice of either the main line or the Hempstead line. In minutes, they can walk to the train. I personally take a 40 minute express train in the morning, and then a 35 minute train at night on the main line, and then walk home. If all else fails, you can easily drive to the Mineola station and there is plenty of parking in the new lot over there. Mineola has a ton of trains and is less than 40 min into the city. There are a ton of options.

Manhasset has one station. Walking is an option only for the few that live near the station. The rest have to deal with the horrendous parking situation in Manhasset. Some find a spot...others try to pay off local businesses to let them park there. The time wasted getting in the car, driving to the station, finding parking, walking to the platform etc. adds to the commute.

2. Besides the fact that avg annual income tells us nothing about a "demographic" other than it's wealth, I'm not sure what you are trying to get at here. Richer is better? First off, that is ridiculous. Secondly, where did you find those stats? Do they measure the Village of GC or the entire GC zipcode (which is outside school lines)?

3. How is a one year snapshot of SAT scores indicative of a school district's performance? To say the Manhasset district is a "tier" above GC based on that sliver of information is simply impossible. GC elementary and middle schools outperformed Manhasset in the recent NY Times rankings (6th in the entire state). Does that make GC a "tier" better than Manhasset?

Given its heavy Catholic population, many families send their kids to Chaminade and Kellenberg, and yet the GC district still performs as one of the top districts in the county. There are so many factors at play here.

Both towns have pluses and minuses, but I think you aren't being objective because you are justifying your purchase. I think both towns are great, and everyone looking for homes in those areas should spend quite a bit of time in both and make up their own minds.

[twingles]

Originally Posted by azzurrony

Hitman,

It sounds like you are trying to justify your purchase. That's fine, but make sure you paint the picture correctly.

1. It's true that the trains in GC are slower, but most people in the Estates and Western section have their choice of either the main line or the Hempstead line. In minutes, they can walk to the train. I personally take a 40 minute express train in the morning, and then a 35 minute train at night on the main line, and then walk home. If all else fails, you can easily drive to the Mineola station and there is plenty of parking in the new lot over there. Mineola has a ton of trains and is less than 40 min into the city. There are a ton of options.

Manhasset has one station. Walking is an option only for the few that live near the station. The rest have to deal with the horrendous parking situation in Manhasset. Some find a spot...others try to pay off local businesses to let them park there. The time wasted getting in the car, driving to the station, finding parking, walking to the platform etc. adds to the commute.

2. Besides the fact that avg annual income tells us nothing about a "demographic" other than it's wealth, I'm not sure what you are trying to get at here. Richer is better? First off, that is ridiculous. Secondly, where did you find those stats? Do they measure the Village of GC or the entire GC zipcode (which is outside school lines)?

3. How is a one year snapshot of SAT scores indicative of a school district's performance? To say the Manhasset district is a "tier" above GC based on that sliver of information is simply impossible. GC elementary and middle schools outperformed Manhasset in the recent NY Times rankings (6th in the entire state). Does that make GC a "tier" better than Manhasset?

Given its heavy Catholic population, many families send their kids to Chaminade and Kellenberg, and yet the GC district still performs as one of the top districts in the county. There are so many factors at play here.

Both towns have pluses and minuses, but I think you aren't being objective because you are justifying your purchase. I think both towns are great, and everyone looking for homes in those areas should spend quite a bit of time in both and make up their own minds.

Yes it gets a little silly when you start making GC sound like it's a step above Hempstead. If you are really that happy where you are living then you can make the argument without specious comparisons.

[twingles]

Originally Posted by hitmantb

.

The gap will widen as the years go by.

Puh-leeze.

[hitmantb]

I haven't bought anything yet, I currently own a small apartment in Brooklyn, just trying to narrow down my list and 1 hour door-to-door (consistently) is one of my requirements along with 1100+ SAT score for me to move out of NYC.

I actually like Great Neck better than Manhasset, slightly higher test score, much cheaper housing, a lot more to choose from near train station, and quicker commute as well. Lots of Asians which is a big plus for me (and part of the reason why it is actually cheaper than Manhasset for others), win-win for me!

However I do like Garden City's look/feel better than Great Neck. Garden City actually reminds me of Westchester powerhouses like Scarsdale/Bronxville in looks. And I honestly believe commute time is why Westchester has the edge over Nassau in overall demographics which leads to better
overall test scores and it just snowballs from there year after year (Scarsdale is 1256 SAT score, Bronxville is 1192, both have amazing commutes to Manhattan on par with Great Neck / Manhasset).

Now for your post:

Media rankings are useless, SAT score is a far better indication of the net effect of the ENTIRE education package (demographics, schools, parent involvement, and yes student strength, it is the end result of all of above), as everyone take the same exact test and it is the single most important exam for a child.

And ***high school*** is what people pay for. There are dozens of neighborhoods with quality elementary/middle schools, the high school / SAT says a lot more about the end result than test scores at 4th grade. I can get quality elementary/middle schools in Forest Hills Queens, enjoy a 30 minute door-to-door commute (that is one extra hour a day I get to spend with my family) and pray my kid gets into Stuyvesant, or I can invest in an area with top high school.

Again, your property value is based on the high school, not elementary, and ultimately, whether you like it or not, it is based on the SAT scores.

SAT Scores: SAT Scores
Zip Code Look Up: 11021 Neighborhoods and 11021 Neighborhood Statistics

[azzurrony]

Hitman,

There are problems with your argument.

1. You effectively assume that home values are linked to SAT scores and commute times. There is way more involved in establishing value in a community.

2. Secondly, you contradict yourself. You say SAT is the biggest factor in measuring a high school's performance and that people pay for high schools. Yet, Great Neck, which is closer to the city and has a higher avg SAT score is less expensive than Manhasset.

3. You only factor one year snap shot of SAT scores.

[hitmantb]

Name one year Garden City scored higher on the SAT than Manhasset over the past decade, SAT score rankings are a LOT more stable than media rankings, and they tell the rise/decline of a neighborhood much better.

I did explain Great Neck's cheaper real estate as a result of the Asian families moving in from Bayside/Flushing. And unusually large number of coop/condos for a neighborhood with that type of schools (higher population density = lower income).

Asians are the new money (kind of like Jewish people moving into wasp areas from way back in the days) and they bid up property prices like mad. And yes, Asians are equal to Whites in academics/test scores. The Great Neck South High School has like 30% Asians which is a turn off for some of the really big shots, so they move further east to escape the yellow fever. Manhasset is the next logical step. This is exactly what happened to ultra high end families in Bayside after Asians moved in from Flushing.

Keep in mind Manhasset (1182) vs Great Neck (1196) is a lot closer than Garden City vs Manhasset. In fact, 1196 is the score of the south high school, the GN north high school got 1165. If you average it up, the true Great Neck score is 1180, just under Manhasset.

So yes, my logic still applies. There are exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions.

I am not saying Garden City is bad, but I think you are comparing a BMW 5 series vs BMW 7 series here.

[azzurrony]

Hitman,

You seem very obsessed with image, status, labels, and town cachet. You also seem to have a chip on your shoulder about this whole Asian issue. No one said Asians score worse than whites. I'm not sure why you felt the need to throw that in.

The NY Times rankings used Regents scores from 1999-2009 so it wasn't opinion based. Nonetheless, I don't buy into that ranking either. See, I'm not obsessed with standardized tests as a measure of quality education.

If you think the sole measure of a school district is the SAT score in HS, then we have to agree to disagree. I think that is a very narrow interpretation.

I can't tell you if GC had better SAT scores over the last decade. I don't have access to that info. Frankly, I don't care. I'm not the type of person that makes home buying decisions based on present day SAT scores that having nothing to do with my kid. Besides, the difference either way will be marginal at best. SAT raw scores are scaled. A few wrong answers could drop you 40, 50, 60 points easily. We are talking about an average difference of a few questions on class sizes ranging from 200-300 kids.

It's really splitting hairs at this point, and it's ignoring everything else that goes into making a great school and town. But, if these numbers make you feel better about your decision, then so be it.

[Walter Greenspan]

A gentle reminder that Garden City is a self-governing village in the Town of Hempstead, whose mayor and board of trustees must be residents of the village, while Manhasset is a hamlet that is governed on an at-large basis by the Town of North Hempstead, whose supervisor and town board members may not necessarily be residents of the hamlet.

[CoolaTroopa]

I'd personally pick Manhasset. Both are nice areas though.
My reasoning is as simple as the fact that Manhasset is closer to the Long Island Sound.

There are many flaws to the SAT results by the way.
#1: Not all the students take the SATs. I think Bellport has an above-average SAT average by the way but not a high percentage of students take the exam.
#2: I don't know what's up with South Side's result but I know South Side has a class of ~300 and they only have 108.. instinct tells me its SAT average is way higher than 977.. way higher! I read elsewhere it's closer to ~1080 (Gilligan). Rockville Centre not only has one of the best school districts on Long Island- it also is in one of the wealthier areas. Two reasons which put these SAT scores in doubt.. unless, these rich kids aren't getting test prep or are just much worse test takers than those in Garden City/Syosset/Jericho/Wheatley etc....then damn, I'd tell everyone in Rockville Centre to move to Oceanside, Wantagh, and Bellmore.. places with much higher averages but 'worse schools'. *rolleyes*. I can see it now- front page of Newsday.

"VILLAGE OF OCEANSIDE DESPERATELY TRIES TO KEEP THOSE ROCK-BRAINED NIMRODS FROM ROCKVILLE CENTRE OUT"
...
Letter to Editor
"Oceanside is a hamlet, not a village.. how could you be so dumb?"