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Hi everybody, we are about to sell our Lindenhurst home and we would prefer to move to Nassau County. We have looked some in Seaford, Massapequa, and Wantagh and have noticed there are some houses that meet our criteria in Oceanside. I don't know the area too well, but did bike ride through the areas bordering Baldwin Harbor and RVC quite a bit some years back, and it seemed like a solidly middle class, quiet, safe area. Can anyone shed some light on Oceanside, particularly on the area around Foxhurst Road, where some homes in my price range appear to be located. We have two kids in middle school so school quality is important to us. In your opinions are South Shore towns like Seaford, Massapequa, and Wantagh worth the extra $$$? Thanks everybody for your time.
The roads are becoming impassable; Oceanside Road, Atlantic, Long Beach Road, Brower, Lawson Blvd, Mott (though street), Waukeena and Foxhurst connect to other communities and thus have become incredibly overcrowded. There are no highway connections in Oceanside so people need to travel though town to reach a highway. It will take you 30 minutes+ to reach the Southern State and 20 minutes+ to hit the Meadowbrook. A school bus company has a depot on Oceanside Road which makes things much worse. Stop signs have been installed at many intersections. Traffic is a total mess in Oceanside it is a nightmare even worse than Merrick Road.
Many single family houses are now becoming multi-generational "mother daughter houses" as evidenced by driveways becoming paved over to accommodate three to four cars per household. My buyer was multigenerational; a grandparent, three kids and a husband an wife; that is six cars over time! The three bedroom (one bath) house that sold across the street is multi-generational with two parents, one grandparent and two kids; they have three cars on the way to five. This adds to crowding and congestion and will place stress and costs on the school system.
The shopping, restaurant, and supermarket access in Oceanside has significantly degraded over time. Lincoln shopping center is desolate, and mostly abandoned; The new "restaurants" supplanting the old restaurants are chains such as Chipotle and Buffalo Wild Wings (yuk). One of the few supermarkets in town is currently abandoned. Even a new "restaurant," Joe's Crab Shack is now shuttered. The main East Bay Diner moved to Seaford and is now a CVS. I heard a rumor that the Chamber of commerce dissuaded a well known Italian Supermarket from locating in Oceanside. Entrenched interests, and a lack of zoning and planning, are blocking any improvement in the Oceanside shopping landscape. My friendly acquaintance owns a pizza shop and he pays a ransom in commercial taxes; only chains with cheap junk food can brave the commercial taxes. There is no bakery anymore. However, Oceanside has become a destination for Nike shoe shopping.
The expensive part of town, the part near the garbage dump, was built on fill in the late 1960's so you have to consider the possibility of flood risk. There are still abandoned houses here or there. Oceanside was one of the hardest hit areas in 2012 and one of the last to recover. It was intentionally forgotten.
The taxes are egregiously high, and the hidden taxes (red light cameras everywhere) are painful. Even the real estate transfer tax (a hidden tax) is ten times what it should be. The electricity rates are double what they should be. Real estate assessments and Star refunds and kickbacks should be considered a vector of state sponsored racketeering. I keeled over when I got my latest School tax bill. Forget about your mortgage payment, that will be the least of your financial problems in Oceanside.
There are "in the bubble" and "out of the bubble" parts of Oceanside. There are several late 1960 communities, and gated apartments in town. Those folks are in a sheltered bubble. Out of the bubble is far less sheltered.
Places like Oceanside Cove are in the bubble and behind a gate; outside is a partially vacant strip mall, a swamp, an "Oil City," a garbage dump, but they have a scenic view of the electric generation station in Island Park (air quality, not).
In nearby East Rockaway you have a major sewage plant that spews effluent into the waterways. They are building an expensive apartment condo complex in proximity to the sewage plant, next to the railroad tracks, near the worst flood zone in town, and next to a jammed up Atlantic Avenue, and a commercially overcrowded Lawson Blvd. $600,000 anyone, it is called greater fool theory.
The real estate agent suggested that most of his buyers were looking to move from Queens to Oceanside to get into better schools and to find the American dream. So Oceanside is becoming Queens without having some of the benefits of Queens such as shopping streets, places to walk, and diversity in eating. The cheaper parts of Oceanside are attracting large multi-generational families from Queens.
The Railroad is on a secondary branch and near a flood zone, trains are slow and infrequent, parking is scarce and flood prone.
There are areas of Oceanside that are becoming, less than safe at night.
What is good about Oceanside, for the moment the School system is alright but it may be in the process of degrading.
There is no Ocean in Oceanside, there is however a road or two that many people use to get to the ocean in the summer.
Oceanside, The Town of Hempstead, and Nassau County (and NYS) well I give them all a vote of no confidence. I just voted with my money by selling at what I think is the last easy time to do so (when rates are still low, but rising).
I hear you friend. I'd be on my way to NC or VA to look at houses so quick all you'd see are my tire tracks but the wife isn't on board with the idea. NY and this area in particular are so overpriced its crazy.I've seen houses in those towns I mentioned that are 14-15-16k. I was curious as to why Oceanside's are much more reasonable.
They're not. Ho side taxes average 10,500-14,000. Average.
That's for a cape or a split on a 60x100. Maybe a high ranch, but they are usually on the higher end. Total rip off for what you get.
I hear you friend. I'd be on my way to NC or VA to look at houses so quick all you'd see are my tire tracks but the wife isn't on board with the idea. NY and this area in particular are so overpriced its crazy.I've seen houses in those towns I mentioned that are 14-15-16k. I was curious as to why Oceanside's are much more reasonable.
Many of the houses being sold in Oceanside are being sold by seniors who have either "Star, or even Enhanced Star." The new owners of the house I sold can look forward to an immediate $3,000 to $5,000 tax increase from the amount of record. Also homeowners who have lower tax rates were the ones that did an assessment grievance every year, those that failed to do so have higher taxes. The rub there is that Nassau county "regulates" the companies doing assessment grievances by limiting the fee they charge to 45% of your savings so you will get a bill three years later that will eat away at any "savings you had" by applying for this dog and pony show. You will have to pony up a check for huge money (from $100's to 1000's) to one of the few "friends and family" assessment grievance companies given a licence to steal from you from Nassau County. The whole assessment system in Nassau County is crime by politician and racketeering by friends and family.
If you buy a house in Nassau County you better check to see if Star and Enhanced Star will be in place for you and your family. Count on not having Star in your budgeting.
If you see lower assessments the reason may be the garbage dump, the oil city depot, the traffic, or any and all the other elements of fact I previously listed.
BTW if you are paying these kinds of taxes you don't own your house. Selling my Oceanside House, I was never though a more costly close in my life.
I also forgot to mention that some homeowners received money from NY Rising and Gosr but could not close their grant cases. In Nassau County 8,123 grants were given with only 2,893 people able to close out the case that is now about FOUR+ years from the flood. There are more than 5000 potential claw back situations in Nassau County and people are selling houses without clearing that potential liability from their title since it is not recorded as a title defect in the town records.
There is also an issue with flood insurance as many folks are locked into cheap policies. If you buy a house make sure you can transfer the existing flood policy to your name; or you might see your flood insurance cost go from $600 to $3000. I would also count on the flood maps being redrawn. If a house is being conveyed with a flood insurance covenant I would not buy it because you don't know what the future availability and cost of flood insurance will be.
They're not. Ho side taxes average 10,500-14,000. Average.
That's for a cape or a split on a 60x100. Maybe a high ranch, but they are usually on the higher end. Total rip off for what you get.
14k? that is madness. Those taxes would rival some of the 1-2 million dollar houses on the north shore
14k? that is madness. Those taxes would rival some of the 1-2 million dollar houses on the north shore
You can easily hit that with houses worth far less than that on the north shore, even without being subject to a village tax. For instance, a relative bought a house for $450k in 2011, probably ~$500k now, in the greater Smithtown area, property taxes are $12.5k. Know folks in Northport with additional village taxes, forget about it. They can hit $16k in sub-$1M homes.
14k? that is madness. Those taxes would rival some of the 1-2 million dollar houses on the north shore
I don't know If I am an expert but I bought and sold Eight houses in NY, bought one in Fl, and bought and sold an apartment building and a brownstone in a foreign country. NY is the worst, with LI being even worse because of the transfer tax increase courtesy of our now indicted county exec Ed Mangano. FLA was the best to deal with.
My suggestion would be rent in a nice Long Beach NY building and then buy if/when interest rates rise. My buyers had a 3.6% interest rate and they could hardly make the payment. As interest rates (and taxes) go up, housing prices have to go down; because monthly payments go up.
In Long Beach you have the Ocean; in Oceanside you have traffic. As a renter in Long Beach you can enjoy the best of LI which is the beach and dining without having to be part of the ponzi scheme that is LI real estate.
Good luck to all I said my peace and I want to leave Oceanside behind and in my rearview mirror. I posted because I wanted to see if people were seeing the same things I was or if they had a different viewpoint. It helps me to be objective; now I have closure of a major problem. Again, GLTA.
Last edited by martinx; 01-12-2017 at 08:26 AM..
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