Long Island - Is it really that bad now? (New York: real estate market, buy)
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AMEN LIer2B...I agree with you! Long Island is a great place to live! It's more than just a place to shop! Crime is low...schools are good...beaches are beautiful...parks abound...winters are mild...why complain? You can shop in a mall, then drive out east to the farms and relax...all in the same day! Ok, ok...taxes are high, but some places are only a few dollars short of our tax system...Long Island always gets a bad rap....and it's a shame. Also, the roads have been cleaned up alot...thanks to the people who volunteer their time and share their names on those signs on the highways! We all, at one point, have a "grass is always greener" thought..but wake up! Smell the wonderful sea air, and thank the good lord you live in a very desirable place! Peace out!
But there are many others where you can 'shop in a mall' (as if going in credit card debt really is a good thing) and then drive out east to farms & relax like central CT. Plus you don't have the snootiness, snobbishness & hostile behavior & driving that is endemic on Long Island and you can buy a real house for under $400,000.
BTW, salaries on Long Island are pathetic and it seems like most of the jobs are in Health Care or some low level accounting profession.
The average MBA grad from Hofstra (for example) gets a job offer paying $65,000 as of 2005. Who can live on $65,000 on Long Island?? I was fortunate to get an offer paying over $10,000 more & now more than that. I am in the transition of moving out of the NYC metro area and it really is better.
I live in Huntington, and my family loves it. I go to the bank, the teller knows me. I go to the pharmacy, the pharmacist knows me. Ditto at the dry cleaner. Of course, part of it is we always go to the same dry cleaner, the same pharmacy, so we've made these relationships happen. We are a middle class family, our kids are involved in Little League, dance, music. So we meet people, and they are not self-absorbed ridiculous people. I'm sure some exist, but we're just not in that circle.
The village cannot be beat for restaurants. Mangiamo is excellent, and there is alway Last Licks for the kdis to have ice cream. Or Ben and Jerry's. Two hibachi restaurants are good and popular as well. There is Afghani. There are Irish pubs.
You can go take a walk along the harbor if you like it more quiet. Small beaches like Gold Star and Fleets Cove are accessible and fun for a quick trip.
Location: Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.
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Is all of Huntington good? I don't know the town all that well. I know there's Huntington station, south Huntington, and just regular Huntington? I heard in the past that Huntington station wasn't all that good?
Location: North of the Cow Pasture and South of the Wind Turbines
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Halesiter
There are Irish pubs.
You can go take a walk along the harbor if you like it more quiet. Small beaches like Gold Star and Fleets Cove are accessible and fun for a quick trip.
I agree with everything you say about Huntington except the quiet walk on the Harbor - I used to walk along there quite a bit, but in the last 5-7 years it became impossible because people drive like maniacs going 60 in their high performance euro trash mobiles, or some hummer thats needs both lanes on that road. Forget about walking your dog you have to hold on tight as these people wiz by you - too bad I had moved there for the quiet, but when the developers came in buying houses for 500,000 and bulldozing the house and putting two MCmansion's up my time had come to leave that nice little community. Which if you want to pay 1- 2 million to gaze upon at the Huntington Harbor Oil slick I guess its your prerogative.
Ok here we are in Jan 2007. I moved away from Long Island over 10 years ago, back then it was a nice place to live in my opinion, but from reading these chat boards it sounds as if Long Island is a horrible place now.
I'm reading rising crime, Illegal Aliens, Traffic day & night, low paying salaries on LI, high taxes, low job growth,high utilty costs, expensive housing, and a corruption problem?
If thats all true why stay?
So is it really that bad? Has it changed so much?
Any info helps.
Thanks
My biggest problem with Long Island when I abandoned ship three years ago was just overall cost. I wanted to buy a house and couldn't picture spending $400,000 and having a mortgage that would require me to work from 6am to 12pm to pay.
Even now when I go back, my biggest issue is cost. Those damn gas prices in NY kill me. I'm only paying $2.84 a gallon (ha, only) here, so to fork out money for those gas prices makes me want to cry.
Some neighborhoods have changed drastically even since 1994-. The north shore still has alot to offer but last year I visited my friend in Massapequa and it is overrated- their mortgage is 900k for a tiny house on the ""water"" an inlet, not the ocean.
.. last year I visited my friend in Massapequa and it is overrated- their mortgage is 900k for a tiny house on the ""water"" an inlet, not the ocean.
"Inlet" = probably a bulkheaded canal, in Massapequa or any of the waterfront towns on the south shore of Nassau and western Suffolk. Canalfront homes are actually in most cases preferable to bayfront, because you can dock a boat there (something that's not possible to do at a bayfront or oceanfront home).
Bayfront/oceanfront homes have spectacular views and sell for multiple millions of dollars even though they are less practical than the canalfront homes you saw in Massapequa (no dockage, and you lose frontage every year from erosion).
Canalfront homes are valuable because most towns stopped allowing the construction of new canals (dredging/bulkheading) a good 15-20 years ago (the DEC won't allow it anymore). So if someone wants to be able to dock their boat at home, they have to buy an existing canalfront house: Supply and demand drives prices.
Your friend in Massapequa probably lives on either a 1/4 or 1/3 acre lot (depending on what part of Massapequa: Bar Harbour?) both of which are average size for Long Island, whether waterfront or not. I agree with you, anything 1/4 acre or less is "tiny", but because it's a waterfront home (and canalfront IS considered waterfront) it may be worth up to 100K more than the same house and lot that's not on the water.
it makes me sad to see that people are so fed up with living on long island. sure there are the downfalls, but these downfalls are common to living anywhere in the world. sure you can live for cheaper somewhere else, but life is expensive on LI for countless reasons. and if everyones tired of the 'snottiness' and hostile behavior of islanders, just take a little trip out east. pretty broad generalization there, but its worth considering.
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Last edited by bellafinzi; 07-19-2007 at 01:52 PM..
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