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Basically, I couldn't imagine the thought of living there...until I visited and saw what my money could buy and how much financial pressure would be lifted without giving up much. Moot for me, the wife won't budge anyway.
Wait it out, my wife was resistent to leaving Long Island, but over time she realized that the numbers weren't adding up and we could have such a better life by leaving. Eventually she gave in because we were sick of working around the clock and having no family time. We were just treading water here, not getting ahead or even enjoying what LI has to offer.
Buffalo is not for everyone and parts of the city still have major issues, but if you can find a niche up there it can be a great place to live.
It will be greener for me, especailly in regard to $$$$
I grew up near the area I'm moving to. My extended family is up there and my wife's family have all moved away from LI or passed away. No reason for us to be on LI. All it is doing is draining our bank account.
I have enough home equity to buy a house upstate, and pay off my debt and still have about 50K left over. Wife will be making the same salary as LI and I will make less, but with no debt and a lower cost of living will will definitely be much better off.
Do you think you'd be able to look forward to a windfall like that if you had lived in Buffalo instead of LI? Especially with a house that will take around 5 months to do repairs to? It annoys me when people down LI and are so ungrateful ... yet do not admit how LI has been good to them.
How do you think your move to Buffalo would be working out if you didn't have a LI home to sell? Wouldn't be such a piece of cake then, would it?
Last edited by I_Love_LI_but; 07-11-2014 at 09:24 AM..
Do you think you'd be able to look forward to a windfall like that if you had lived in Buffalo instead of LI? Especially with a house that will take around 5 months to do repairs to? It annoys me when people down LI and are so ungrateful ... yet do not admit how LI has been good to them.
We got in JUST before the housing bubble inflated around 2000, so yes we did make out very well in that regard. Buffalo was on the slide in the 90's and LI looked much more attractive at the time. However the tides have turned and leaving here now is the smart move.
Yes I have home equity but I can't access it while I'm living here. I don't want to go into debt with my house just so I can stay on Long Island. That is insanity.
Do you think you'd be able to look forward to a windfall like that if you had lived in Buffalo instead of LI? Especially with a house that will take around 5 months to do repairs to?
If I hurried up it wouldn't take me 5 months to repair our house (it does need some work but not that much), the only reason I'm taking that long to fix it is that I've got to stay in my job here in LI for that time frame due to some previous committments.
Do you think you'd be able to look forward to a windfall like that if you had lived in Buffalo instead of LI? ?
I don't think there are very many people who bought a house in the 1990s who aren't making a nice buck on it these days. Unless you're talking about a place like Detroit, RE has probably been kind to most people regardless of their location if you've owned it long enough.
Houses in my neighborhood sold for $220Ks-$250Ks when it was built in the mid-90s. Houses are currently selling for high $300Ks to mid $400Ks - my neighbors are original owners and paid $220K; they just sold for $420K.
My long winded point is that walking about with a bundle of cash is not unusual if someone didn't use their house as an ATM, regardless of where you live, if you bought at the right time.
I don't think there are very many people who bought a house in the 1990s who aren't making a nice buck on it these days. Unless you're talking about a place like Detroit, RE has probably been kind to most people regardless of their location if you've owned it long enough.
Houses in my neighborhood sold for $220Ks-$250Ks when it was built in the mid-90s. Houses are currently selling for high $300Ks to mid $400Ks - my neighbors are original owners and paid $220K; they just sold for $420K.
My long winded point is that walking about with a bundle of cash is not unusual if someone didn't use their house as an ATM, regardless of where you live, if you bought at the right time.
He said "Buffalo was on the slide in the 90s" so I don't think he meant he would have had a windfall.
Your area is atypical of most of the rest of the country in that it is a big draw for people from our area and other northern areas with lots of cash from selling their "overpriced" homes. Most places in the USA do not see $200K gains in that few years. See:
Too many speculators in the mid-2000s bought houses with the hope that their investments would go up in value. Some got lucky. Many didn’t.
It is worthy of note that Shiller’s discoveries are based on national averages and as they say in real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. In some areas, home values have not kept pace with inflation. For example, in Baytown, Texas, your average three-bedroom, two-bathroom home ran about $80,000 in 1980. And that same home will cost you about the same today. Here we are 33 years later, and house prices in that area are the same as they were in 1980. So much for keeping up with inflation! There are other areas where home values have outpaced inflation and have appreciated. The challenge, of course, would be in determining which areas will beat the national average of 0.2 percent.
Now if Baytown, TX was a BIG DRAW for cash-rich Yankees like the Triangle Area is, things would be different ...
Ugh. More from the queen of misinformation. Buffalo and Pittsburgh have totally transformed from rust belt decline and are growing. SUNY taking over and renovating huge swaths of the city, City Honors one of the best Middle/High schools in the country (yes, the entire USA), waterfront projects slowly taking form, home prices have gone up slowly with no decline in 20 years. Lots of historic architectural marvel buildings being bought up and restored. It's still New York so there is plenty of govt dysfunction and corruption and still lots of blight but Buffalo is completely on the upswing and lots of downstaters who hate the idea of Florida and the Carolinas are looking favorably at Western NY with good reason. Nice, stately homes w/ original woodwork and stained glass in solid family neighborhoods for $175k and less than 1/2 long island's taxes, 7 hrs from NYC and 2 hrs from Toronto.
If buffalo is on an upswing, why are most of the businesses in downtown Buffalo closed??? We had a nice time at the brewery there but other than that, there was nothing else there. I will say it looks like they are trying to rebuild the waterfront area but it's taking a really long time.
We got in JUST before the housing bubble inflated around 2000, so yes we did make out very well in that regard. Buffalo was on the slide in the 90's and LI looked much more attractive at the time. However the tides have turned and leaving here now is the smart move.
Yes I have home equity but I can't access it while I'm living here. I don't want to go into debt with my house just so I can stay on Long Island. That is insanity.
Using sound reasoning and good sense like that must make you stand-out on LI like Erol Flynn at a Pee-Wee Herman impersonator's convention!
Using sound reasoning and good sense like that must make you stand-out on LI like Erol Flynn at a Pee-Wee Herman impersonator's convention!
Yes, it makes sense for him to leave if his other option is to use home equity loans to be able to stay! Glad he found a place to move to he knows and likes.
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