What borough fits this description? (Roosevelt, Willet: to rent, condo, coop)

[Don'tLikeToBeBored.]

Hi everyone!
My husband is putting in a transfer to move us to NYC next summer. He's management for a large retail chain so we can pick a borough (but not much else) and then we'll find housing from there. We're both post-graduate educated, we'll be making approximately 140,000 initially and I work from home. Our kids are in elementary school (1st/4th gr.) I'm Italian/French but born and raised in America. Husband's family is Czech/Irish but again, American. We were both raised Catholic, all our family is catholic and we went to parochial schools growing up. We're planning on purchasing a 3br condo because we don't want the hassle of an entire house or a yard and we feel very comfortable in a predominantly Italian neighborhood, especially since we'll be moving without having any of our family with us.

Which borough would fit us best? We'll find specific neighborhoods after the transfer's gone through.

[MattSiggs]

Depending on whether your husband has to travel, I'd say Staten Island would be a good place to look at first. I also don't know if you want to continue the parochial school tradition, but SI has a lot of Catholic schools to choose from, and is predominately Italian(34%). Also, Staten Island is a place I'd visit before moving to. Some people just straight up don't like it, for whatever reason. It takes some getting used to.

The downside of the island is that commuting to and from the city is notoriously bad and traffic is often congested.

I'm only really familiar with Staten Island, but I'm sure other members will toss up other places to live for your choosing.

Good luck!

[Don'tLikeToBeBored.]

No, he doesn't have to travel. I wouldn't hesitate to send my kids to parochial school if the public schools were bad. Does SI have it's own downtown?

[Henna]

bronx might be an option as well. queens and brooklyn may be too pricey for you to buy a 3 bedoom condo. maybe you could do a coop but prob. not condo

[samyn on the green]

I think you should go with Queens. Whitestone Queens has a middle class catholic population, good people over there and the houses are typically immaculate like most Italian neighborhoods. There are some co-op type buildings along Willets Point Blvd that are exactly what you are looking for.

[Henna]

thats a good suggestion esp if proximity to a subway doesn;t matter to them. Whitestone is not near the subway, but it seems like a nice place to have a car. You can get places fairly easily and the coop prices over there should be cheaper than the parts of queens that are closer to subways and manhattan.

[bx718]

throgs neck bronx

[samyn on the green]

Originally Posted by Henna

thats a good suggestion esp if proximity to a subway doesn;t matter to them. Whitestone is not near the subway, but it seems like a nice place to have a car. You can get places fairly easily and the coop prices over there should be cheaper than the parts of queens that are closer to subways and manhattan.

The Dad is a retail manager so he will most likely be driving to a strip mall, lets go out on a limb and say Target in College Point. In addition out of town Americans universally grew up with cars to you can be sure that they will have a car. Whitestone will suit these people well. If they have to take public transit it will be a challenge. It is Q16 bus to the 7 train at main street & Roosevelt.

[Don'tLikeToBeBored.]

what is a co-op? We don't want to rent, we would rather buy. Also, we only get to choose a borough and then work with wherever they put him.

[Don'tLikeToBeBored.]

And which borough has the least crime? I don't want him to get shot when he's working or he'll be pissed at me for wanting to move to NYC in the first place.