How's Nanticoke?? (Philadelphia, York, Back Mountain: appointed, houses, to buy)

[Jungle George]

Thanks deLorean for the info!! My partner & I are looking in that area or upstate(way upstate) NY. The taxes in NY though are killer!!

If you don't mind, any approximate on your cost of renovating? I've found 2 houses that are nice that do not need renovating (120-140,000.00) but am still looking and considering a "slight fixer-upper".

We are looking to sell our condo & house here which should get us approximately 1/2 a million, buying a cheaper house up there and retiring off investing the remainder. I'm far from an accountant, but it sounds feasible to me. My partner also receives SSI monthly due to a degenerative disease (caused by his mom taking a certain drug when she was pregnant) that makes his body eat its own calcium....7 back surgeries later....

I'm glad Nanticoke is rebounding. I still have family there & my grandfather was a miner there & lived in the Honeypot section.

Good to meet nice folks up that way & thanks again!!!!

[DeLorean]

WasPA, yep I have been to Stookey's BarBQue many times. Most excellent BBQ. I am originally from Philadelphia so it's not what I am used to but it's very good. I don't want to come off as over positive, there IS some crime there (I do read the police blotter), but it is well below the national average.

the financial recovery plan does sound promising. the city website is very informative about progress in that respect-- http://www.nanticokecity.com/2007news.htm

My renovation cost was pretty low, however I am pretty handy and I can do most of the work myself. the house was used as a rental property for many years and most things were fixed as needed, some better than others. I basically needed to plaster a few spots, paint everything, do some plumbing and other various repairs and update the kitchen on the one side. Roof is recent (03), hot water heaters and furnaces are in good working condition. the house has all the windows + storm windows, though they are the originals... I still have some things to do, but I would put the price of fixing it up so far around $10,000 not including my labor. probably $30,000 with it. I should mention that the price was so low to start with because it was a forclosuer, so don't expect to find one THAT cheap in similar condition unless you get a forecloser yourself.

If you don't mind me asking Jungle George what houses are you looking at? I was just up in Honeypot helping clean out a house that was vacant for 37 years for renovations with one of my friends That is a pretty nice area now, there are a lot of people fixing things up around there.

[Jungle George]

Hi DeLorean!!

Thanks for the info!! My grandmother lived on Rock St in the Honeypot section (#20 if I remember....she died in 1970 and is buried in a cemetary on a hill somewhere in Nanticoke).

The houses I am looking at are on Prospect St & W Grand St.They are more expensive but in move-in condition. It's kinda hard right now cause my mom is bedridden & dying of cancer (I take care of her 24/7) and I can't just fly up there to look at houses. I found a nice real estate agent up there who's been a help to me also.


Thanks again DeLorean & if you think of anything else let me know!!

[DeLorean]

Prospect and Grand streets are nice, the road surface on both roads has not been re-paved since the 70's and are in horrific condition, they are doing them this summer sometime with the money from the state, so that should be a nice improvement right there.

There are some really gigantic houses on both those streets, most are well kept and in pretty nice shape.

[Jungle George]

Hi DeLorean!! Glad those areas are nice!! I'm sure we will find a nice home there!! Like I said, I'm kinda tied right now, but that doesn't stop me from finding out as much as I can ahead of time with the help of nice folks like you!!

Some other questions if you don't mind...approximate costs on things such as:
Cable TV/Internet...here we are paying 140.00 a month for basic cable and high speed internet with Adelphia/Comcast.

Water/sewer...here it averages about 40.00 a month total.

Electric...I know, hard to approximate, here our bill averages 150.00 w/o a/c and 200.00 with a/c a month. That is with washer/dryer, 2 refrigerators, pool pump, TV, stove and not much of any wastefulness. We turn lights & fans off when leaving the room etc.

Home insurance...here we're up to 3000.00 a year (2% hurricane deductible)and climbing. My neighbor's just went to 8000.00 a year!! This is with our houses having absolutely no damage from the 4 hurricanes we were hit with!! It's a big crisis down here that the state is now working on.
Up there I know it's much cheaper, but aren't some of the areas of Nanticoke mined under? Just wondering if there's any insurance in case of tunnel collapse if you're on top of it?

I'm trying to factor approximates into my plans so I can make a semi-educated decision .
Thanks so much for all the help & I forgot to say...best of luck in YOUR new home!!!!

[Jungle George]

Hi Delorean!! Forgot 1 question...
Cell phone service...I know it's mountainous around that area & was wondering how reception was? Best carrier for the area?
Down here we have Verizon and with 2 phones on the same account, 1 with internet service and a total of 1500 minutes total for both we are paying 200.00 a month!! (Fla taxes alone monthly on the service are almost 40.00).
Just wondering comparisons up your way...
Thanks & enjoy the rest of your weekend!!!

[DeLorean]

cable internet is all I have, no cable TV cause I never watch it. That is $58 a month from comcast/adelphia currently, but they are jacking it up by about $10 here soon.

Electric is 6 cents per KWH. that is some of the cheapest anywhere in the US, thanks to the Berwick Nuclear plant about 20 miles down the road. my bill with the low wattage bulbs (spiral fluorescents) is around $30 a month, $60 with a small AC in 2 rooms. Just compare to your bill, you are probably paying at least 10 cents per KWH, maybe 12 or 14. It will be an easy matter to calculate what your electric bill would be in Nanticoke, just re-calculate your current bill for 6 cents per KWH rather than what they currently charge.

I have a sprint phone, in the high spots of Nanticoke, I always have all the bars, in the low sections I think I drop down to about 2/3, but I have never had any issue making or receiving calls in Nanticoke. how much is costs is what ever service level you want. mine I end up paying around $60 a month unless I talk too much and get slammed with overages. I did once get a $287 bill.

the water / sewer bills are a ***** here. I get charged 3 bills, 1 for water, 1 from the Wyoming valley sanitation authority, one bill from the city of Nanticoke sewer use maintenance fee. In total they add up to around $100 a month...

My insurance was actually just $266 the first year, but my new bill was $780... but I hear it's gone up everywhere cause the insurance co's took so much of a loss in the high risk areas in the past year.

About the mine risks... you do hear about a house or 2 every year in the area that will get badly damaged due to a "mine subduction" as they call them. it basically happens when a mine shaft or vent hole collapses and this in turn causes the ground above it to collapse. you hear about several spots on the ground each year that do this (mostly around Pittston, and in parking lots), and like I said, if this happens under a house, the house will generally sustain un-reparable damage. This is very rare in Nanticoke, so not too much to worry about there. As far as I know, there is a clause in most standard homeowners policies that does not cover this type of damage, but you may be able to get a policy that will.

And thanks for the good luck. I would never have been able to buy a new house where I used to live at 22, no way no how. I would have bought 4 houses in Nanticoke for what houses in the suburbs of philly go for.

[PAman]

Nanticoke, as all said, is your typical coal region town. Dead downtown, grid design, easy to get around, plenty of potential for revival. Had family from up that way when they first settled in America with about 20,000 other people who's last names in nanticoke ended with -icz or -ski or -cenko. I've only been to Nanticoke a handful of times, but always saw it as a place I could live in and commute to a job(planning a career in education after finishing college, school districts are all over the place in pa) if I could find out some financing information about the place. I've always been curious as to Nanticoke, I only really knew it was a big Polish and Ukranian town back in the day, and that there are plenty of people of those ancestries there, but the minute details I was not aware of...I'd love to go back someday to stay.

[Jungle George]

Just a little true story for everyone...

My grandparents came from Austria/Czechoslovakia (not sure because of the borders changes going back a bit). My grandfather's parents were well off & owned a small estate there & raised horses for the gentry. My grandmother's parents were poor shepherds. When she was a little girl, my grandmother would play with the son of the people her parents herded sheep for. The boy's family left for America when my grandmother was 8 y/o.

My grandmother's parents decided to also go to America to do better and they settled in Nanticoke. One day when my grandmother was 16 she went (escorted of course) to a church dance in Wilkes Barre. She started dancing with this nice gentleman & they started talking. Turns out it was my grandfather & they played together as children in Europe.

Talk about a small world. My grandfather's folks were doing good financially and he told them he was going to ask my grandmother to marry him. Since her family were poor they told him no or he would be disinherited. Long story short, he married my grandmother, got disinherited and ended up a coal miner.

Always thought that would've made a great play or movie.

[Vagus]

Originally Posted by WasPA

^^
Do you cross the river to eat at Stookey's BarBQue?; the 'pork', "wet"? If so, I envy you to pieces...If not...GO!

For those not in the know, Stookeys BBQ, while good in its own right, is NOTHING like the "southern" or "Texas" BBQ that people are generally used to.

My parents are from Nanticoke and I still have family there, so I've been there countless times.

It's pretty dead nowadays.

And the absolute worst thing about the place is the lack of anything green. There are like, no trees whatsoever along the streets, all downed by either chestnut blight, dutch elm disease, or "urban planning" that improved streets but never replaced trees. It just makes it look incredibly bleak, and no shade in the summer. As other posters have said, it's a far cry from it's heyday 60-70 years ago.

I wouldn't want to live there.