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Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 19 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,085,392 times
Reputation: 15538
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MemoryMaker
Where I live (Western Suffolk), I either have the choice to:
- Settle for a crappy-paying $12-$19 hour office job on Long Island and struggle like hell (yes, most non-managerial office jobs pay in that range). By doing this, I will NEVER be able to afford my own place since basic apartments start at $1,300/mo+utilities. Also, you'll still likely have awful highway commute. Incomes on LI are the same as the rest of the US but the cost of living is astronomically worse!
OR
- Take the LIRR+Subway for 3+ hrs total every day, have no time for family/personal life/relationship and deal with the rapidly rising train fares. Not to mention most stations charge for parking which is another major expense! Most of the lines are not reliable and there's guaranteed to be a delay several times a week. The manhattan jobs are also CRAZY-COMPETITIVE to get since almost everybody in America and their mama wants to live in the city and apply to these jobs lol
Keep in mind that i'm a business grad from a good school with some experience so I should have better opportunities.
Life is choices, you choose a good subject in college and your income potential an be very high, choose wrongly and you are an over educated burger flipper waiting for the one opening in your chosen career to open. Living is the same way if you want the out burbs of LI there won't be any paying opportunities they have all left the state, if you want the education/experience you mentioned to pay then go where the market exists for your skills. Why do you have an expectation that you "should have better opportunities." no one made you a guarantee and as you grew up in the area you should have known that the opportunities are little to none.
Life is choices, you choose a good subject in college and your income potential an be very high, choose wrongly and you are an over educated burger flipper waiting for the one opening in your chosen career to open. Living is the same way if you want the out burbs of LI there won't be any paying opportunities they have all left the state, if you want the education/experience you mentioned to pay then go where the market exists for your skills. Why do you have an expectation that you "should have better opportunities." no one made you a guarantee and as you grew up in the area you should have known that the opportunities are little to none.
It's actually cheaper to live in NYC than it is LI and there are decent paying jobs here. And commuting costs are far less. As noted unless you live near a LIRR station you drive to the LIRR. Then on top of your automotive costs you have to pay commuter railroad fares and subway fares. All that money spent just going to work and all the time too. It's really not worth it.
NYers are realizing their Brooklyn and Manhattan neighborhoods aren't very 'school friendly'. Forget about the Bronx, which is a lost cause. And paying 30k a year for a private school is pure insanity. And have you seen the crime pages lately in NYC? Another reason why people are getting out.
Many people think the NYC housing bubble is going to burst, including Barry Sternlicht. In Barrons last month, Barry said he sees the Manhattan residential market on the “precipice of an epic collapse”.
I'll add another kink to the mix of why the NYC metro is such a difficult place to live. Its one of my biggest gripes with the area and I believe a major disadvantage over other cities.
When in a job hunting situation, a job listed in the NYC metro can be anywhere from Riverhead to Trenton, or Beacon to Atlantic City. Its very, very hard to live "central" to anywhere, unless you live in Brooklyn or Manhattan. Even then, I can't tell you how many people I know who live in Brooklyn and commute to far flung suburbs because their job is specialized and only there or extremely limited in other parts of the metro. I've known people who have bought houses in areas that they thought were central, or in areas where they thought their job was secure, only to find that their next job is 60 miles away in the other direction. So, they have to move or commute a horrible commute.
The sheer size of the NYC metro limits you to only search for a job in your part of the suburbs, or only in NYC. NYC metro has so many "edge" cities.
Now, take your pick of any larger metro areas in the US: Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Buffalo, Indianapolis, Denver, Charlotte, etc. You can live almost anywhere in the metro and still have a reasonable commute to anywhere else in the metro when looking for a job. That means stability when you buy a house, a less stressful job hunt, etc. In many cases, in the larger metros, most of the jobs are downtown or near downtown anyway. I know in my job hunts in other metros, few jobs are in the far flung suburbs, but in the NYC metro, jobs can be anywhere over a 300 square mile swath of land.
I've considered buying a house here, and then I think: where? What job is going to be so stable to plunk $300k on a house, only to lose it later if the next job is perfect for me, still in NY metro, but 75 miles away. I think this is a huge disadvantage of the NYC suburbs.
I'll add another kink to the mix of why the NYC metro is such a difficult place to live. Its one of my biggest gripes with the area and I believe a major disadvantage over other cities.
When in a job hunting situation, a job listed in the NYC metro can be anywhere from Riverhead to Trenton, or Beacon to Atlantic City. Its very, very hard to live "central" to anywhere, unless you live in Brooklyn or Manhattan. Even then, I can't tell you how many people I know who live in Brooklyn and commute to far flung suburbs because their job is specialized and only there or extremely limited in other parts of the metro. I've known people who have bought houses in areas that they thought were central, or in areas where they thought their job was secure, only to find that their next job is 60 miles away in the other direction. So, they have to move or commute a horrible commute.
The sheer size of the NYC metro limits you to only search for a job in your part of the suburbs, or only in NYC. NYC metro has so many "edge" cities.
Now, take your pick of any larger metro areas in the US: Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Buffalo, Indianapolis, Denver, Charlotte, etc. You can live almost anywhere in the metro and still have a reasonable commute to anywhere else in the metro when looking for a job. That means stability when you buy a house, a less stressful job hunt, etc. In many cases, in the larger metros, most of the jobs are downtown or near downtown anyway. I know in my job hunts in other metros, few jobs are in the far flung suburbs, but in the NYC metro, jobs can be anywhere over a 300 square mile swath of land.
I've considered buying a house here, and then I think: where? What job is going to be so stable to plunk $300k on a house, only to lose it later if the next job is perfect for me, still in NY metro, but 75 miles away. I think this is a huge disadvantage of the NYC suburbs.
300k in NY metro area? Where is that exactly? And how terrible is the house?
It's actually cheaper to live in NYC than it is LI and there are decent paying jobs here. And commuting costs are far less. As noted unless you live near a LIRR station you drive to the LIRR. Then on top of your automotive costs you have to pay commuter railroad fares and subway fares. All that money spent just going to work and all the time too. It's really not worth it.
Correct, which is why many people who are able to leave do so. Only the wealthy (or children of the wealthy), the poor, the young who are willing to live on noodles and share an apartment or those whose careers are directly tied to NYC will be left.
I'll add another kink to the mix of why the NYC metro is such a difficult place to live. Its one of my biggest gripes with the area and I believe a major disadvantage over other cities.
When in a job hunting situation, a job listed in the NYC metro can be anywhere from Riverhead to Trenton, or Beacon to Atlantic City. Its very, very hard to live "central" to anywhere, unless you live in Brooklyn or Manhattan. Even then, I can't tell you how many people I know who live in Brooklyn and commute to far flung suburbs because their job is specialized and only there or extremely limited in other parts of the metro. I've known people who have bought houses in areas that they thought were central, or in areas where they thought their job was secure, only to find that their next job is 60 miles away in the other direction. So, they have to move or commute a horrible commute.
The sheer size of the NYC metro limits you to only search for a job in your part of the suburbs, or only in NYC. NYC metro has so many "edge" cities.
Now, take your pick of any larger metro areas in the US: Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Buffalo, Indianapolis, Denver, Charlotte, etc. You can live almost anywhere in the metro and still have a reasonable commute to anywhere else in the metro when looking for a job. That means stability when you buy a house, a less stressful job hunt, etc. In many cases, in the larger metros, most of the jobs are downtown or near downtown anyway. I know in my job hunts in other metros, few jobs are in the far flung suburbs, but in the NYC metro, jobs can be anywhere over a 300 square mile swath of land.
I've considered buying a house here, and then I think: where? What job is going to be so stable to plunk $300k on a house, only to lose it later if the next job is perfect for me, still in NY metro, but 75 miles away. I think this is a huge disadvantage of the NYC suburbs.
Yes! I could definitely identify with this.
If you're familiar with Long Island: When I lived in Babylon, I used to work in Hempstead and the commute was a NIGHTMARE! It would LITERALLY take me 1 hour just to get 10 miles during rush hour. Without traffic, the ride would only be 15 minutes!
I lived in Buffalo briefly and even during rush hour, there was barely any traffic. It was awesome! Likely because it was depopulated and the infrastructure was built for much more people than the areas has now.
300k in NY metro area? Where is that exactly? And how terrible is the house?
300k is nothing in this market.
This is true. $300k gets you nothing. But I was trying to be reasonable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MemoryMaker
Yes! I could definitely identify with this.
If you're familiar with Long Island: When I lived in Babylon, I used to work in Hempstead and the commute was a NIGHTMARE! It would LITERALLY take me 1 hour just to get 10 miles during rush hour. Without traffic, the ride would only be 15 minutes!
I lived in Buffalo briefly and even during rush hour, there was barely any traffic. It was awesome! Likely because it was depopulated and the infrastructure was built for much more people than the areas has now.
Yes, and I think it extends to more places than the depopulated Northeast. With only a few exceptions that I can think of (Los Angeles, San Francisco, perhaps Chicago, DFW, DC), no other metro is the sheer size of the NYC metro with so many edge cities. Especially when you include the Philly metro, which basically intersects with the NYC metro.
I used to have to commute to eastern LI from NJ twice a week. It took 3 hours, each way. But that's where the work was.
Atlanta was the most traffic ridden place I've ever been to- but even there, you could live in an awesome condo in Buckhead and get wherever you needed to inside the 285 beltway, where almost 100% of the jobs would be, within 1 hr.
I'll add another kink to the mix of why the NYC metro is such a difficult place to live. Its one of my biggest gripes with the area and I believe a major disadvantage over other cities.
When in a job hunting situation, a job listed in the NYC metro can be anywhere from Riverhead to Trenton, or Beacon to Atlantic City. Its very, very hard to live "central" to anywhere, unless you live in Brooklyn or Manhattan. Even then, I can't tell you how many people I know who live in Brooklyn and commute to far flung suburbs because their job is specialized and only there or extremely limited in other parts of the metro. I've known people who have bought houses in areas that they thought were central, or in areas where they thought their job was secure, only to find that their next job is 60 miles away in the other direction. So, they have to move or commute a horrible commute.
The sheer size of the NYC metro limits you to only search for a job in your part of the suburbs, or only in NYC. NYC metro has so many "edge" cities.
Now, take your pick of any larger metro areas in the US: Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Buffalo, Indianapolis, Denver, Charlotte, etc. You can live almost anywhere in the metro and still have a reasonable commute to anywhere else in the metro when looking for a job. That means stability when you buy a house, a less stressful job hunt, etc. In many cases, in the larger metros, most of the jobs are downtown or near downtown anyway. I know in my job hunts in other metros, few jobs are in the far flung suburbs, but in the NYC metro, jobs can be anywhere over a 300 square mile swath of land.
I've considered buying a house here, and then I think: where? What job is going to be so stable to plunk $300k on a house, only to lose it later if the next job is perfect for me, still in NY metro, but 75 miles away. I think this is a huge disadvantage of the NYC suburbs.
Amen, brother.
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