Buy this starter house on Long Island, or Co-op in Queens?

[mathjak107]

alot of you say take the house its an investment. heres my take ,,, a house where you live is not an investment, its a place to live , its a home......its a consumption item that costs you money each month.. the fact that it has some worth at the end is a bonus but its not an investment. whether your house is a million dollars or 100,000 is meaningless until its sold if its sold. and if you buy something of equal value or more its still meaningless . if you live in it forever its even more meaningless. ...the truth is had i rented for the last 20 years and invested the difference between renting and all the costs associated with buying my house and renovations over the years,taxes, repairs, bills etc, in the same equities portfolio i have been using for those 20 years the portfolio would buy almost 2 houses today after subtracting out all the rent i would have spent so lets get the investment thought out of the equation......... . anyone who stopped investing for retirement and thought their house was their investment is in a sorry predicament now. although the equity markets are in a down cycle they still average long term 2 to almost 3x the return of what residential real estate does and probley will coninue that 100 year track record. ... the bottom line is you buy a house becuse its a home you want to live in, you want the security of a home, you like fixing it up your way ,you like the back yard and all the comforts your own home can give you, but investment isnt one of them...... its all about priorities ...... the co-op is a lot less time consuming and much less in expenses... you got taxes in long island, heating bills, water bills, maintaince and repairs, gardening to do, snow removal... geesh im exhausted just writing about it.... co-op has mortgage and maintaince payment,,done!

it all depends where your priorities are and where you want to live and whats affordable to you ... forget about the financial value of house vs co-op... your time is your most valuable asset... unless your prepared to pay to have everything done for you (like i do on our pa house) then co-op living requires the least amount of your precious time. you might prefer having your weekends all to your self and family and not sharing it with the house.. a house can be a money pit if you allow it. too

we only use our pa home maybe 1 to 2x a month and the amount of money i can spend on things inside and out is endless.. but i do love the house...

[Rachael84]

Originally Posted by SeventhFloor

i still say that the property tax on long island is too high....

It ends up being nearly the same in the end. Houses in Queens are more expensive but the taxes are less. Unless you're going to send your kids to public school in Queens, then yeah, it will be just a little bit cheaper in the end. But we would want to send to private school if we were to live in Queens, which would end up being just a little bit more in the end. And with the property and income tax rising, it would be even more. At least with the high taxes you get a lot of nice things in return--great schools is just one of them.

[mathjak107]

if your looking at private school in queens then go for long island .. when we lived in kew garden hills we had both kids in private school. the taxes in long island in a good school districr would have been a bargain compared to private school from kindergarden to 8th grade... i wanted to move but my ex didnt

[Rachael84]

How much is the tuition for a kid in private school in Queens? just curious

[mathjak107]

ill ask my daugter, she works at solomon schector in kew gardin hills... i think its now around 10,000 per child... its insane... i think it was 4,000 many years ago when my kids went. at least if they were taxes you can get 1/3 back

funny thing is my daughter hasnt been out of that school since shes 4. ha ha... she graduated from 8th grade and worked there in an after school program while in college.. she then graduated and works as a assistant teacher

[mathjak107]

Originally Posted by SeventhFloor

i still say that the property tax on long island is too high....

they are high but you need to compare a few things such as in my case and rachaels case if the kids are in private school in the city games over long island wins..

another factor is where your income level is. the city is only cheaper up to a certain level of income. higher incomes pay more in nyc tax then long island taxes on real estate... on a few apartment sales we had our nyc taxes due were about 4 years worth of long island taxes..... our partner who lives in new jersey paid 35,000 less tax on the same sales because we had the city income tax