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Dunno bout you guys but if I am spending 750k and more importantly, $27k a year in taxes, I am going to live 35-40 minutes closer to the city so I can work my a$$ off to pay for it.
After a review of similarly priced houses closer to the city my conclusion is that the taxes are a turn off. I think this was a new build or rebuild that got taxed at a very high rate.
Dunno bout you guys but if I am spending 750k and more importantly, $27k a year in taxes, I am going to live 35-40 minutes closer to the city so I can work my a$$ off to pay for it.
After a review of similarly priced houses closer to the city my conclusion is that the taxes are a turn off. I think this was a new build or rebuild that got taxed at a very high rate.
Not closer to the city, just further east in towns where this value is closer to the median, not the top of the spectrum.
I am in the very early stages of my search for a house. I am married with two children and plan to have more. Accordingly, I am searching for sizable homes, which is tough in the NYC area. I have a healthy housing budget, but cannot possibly afford a sizable condo or house close to NYC. For now, I am searching in suburbs in northern Westchester.
I came across this house today in Yorktown Heights and it looks absolutely perfect. The only thing is that I cannot figure out how it has not been snatched up yet. It has been on the market for something like over a year. Can anyone shed light on any obvious reasons why this house is not selling? Could it be the area, not the house?
No, I am not the seller or the realtor and have no association whatsoever with this house beyond being cautiously interested.
On a related note, I am seeing a lot of homes like this in Northern Westchester. Homes that look absolutely gorgeous and perfect to me, but have been on the market forever. Is there something wrong with the area as a whole that I should know about (flood zone, termites, toxic waste dumping etc)?
If it looks absolutely perfect for you. About the only way you're going to find out is to go and look at the home yourself. It may or may not be so great. If it is the home for you a good and thorough home inspection will uncover any problems. If there are any issues but you still want the home you can use this as a bargaining tool to negotiate a lower price. The fact that it's been on the market for so long will also work to your advantage.
You're going to be looking at a lot of homes in your search. Don't rule any of them out until you see them all first hand up close and personal.
You say that there are a lot of similar homes that have been on the market forever? Just a guess, but maybe it's the market for these homes that is an issue and not any particular home. Westchester County is a very expensive place to live in. It could be that there are fewer and fewer people that are able to afford these homes especially when you factor in the astronomical property taxes.
If you can afford to live there then great. It may turn out to be a buyers market.
Last edited by Ex New Yorker; 02-04-2017 at 09:57 AM..
If you turn on the satellite view on google maps, the power lines are in the perfectly mowed line running west of the house. Honestly, they're too far away to stress about.
In my opinion, the house is there because it's a lot of house - you'd probably be the bigger fish in a smaller, more modestly priced pond. Some people like that, but I think most people would rather go for the "not as fancy" house in a bigger better pond. Yorktown Heights has a good rep, but it's far from the city and with an 800k budget you definitely have options.
And nothing beats seeing a house in person to make you realize if it will work for you and your family or not
Dunno bout you guys but if I am spending 750k and more importantly, $27k a year in taxes, I am going to live 35-40 minutes closer to the city so I can work my a$$ off to pay for it.
After a review of similarly priced houses closer to the city my conclusion is that the taxes are a turn off. I think this was a new build or rebuild that got taxed at a very high rate.
Yes, this. This is a huge house and seems to be relatively well-kept, but it's also going to need to appeal to a very specific sort of buyer:
1. Someone who wants a large house/lot and all the maintenance expenses it requires
2. Someone who doesn't mind a close to 1.5hr commute each way into Grand Central (maybe works for IBM?) To put things in perspective, even in Southern Westchester my commute to downtown manhattan is about 2 hours total travel time with driving, metro north and subway (a mere 25 miles away), so it can quickly become a burdensome thing to have to do every day.
3. Ok with bidding on the high end of the pricing/tax spectrum for the area
4. Ok with lack of access to nearby shops/amenities/town and the overall lack of walkability in the area
I'm not at all a realtor or qualified to speak on the water issue, but I did notice the house was very close to the Croton reservoir. Not sure if that has any significance in terms of water accumulation and/or flooding, but this was something that turned us off to many otherwise nice houses in the Greenwich/Cos Cob CT area.
I show that house as sold when I click on your link. I would NEVER buy in Yorktown for the $775k that it was listed at because of the taxes involved (27k), and I live here lol!. I would probably look at Katonah for that budget, although Hanover street is a good location, but it is a country road used as a cut through to rt 100, if you look at either the part of yorktown that borders croton on map view zillow, or the part that borders rt 35&100, it is not too far from the Katonah station or croton station....but either way, you get less conjestion longer commute up here. Look at the listing for 9 Bedell rd, Amawalk for example. Good location, and only 16k taxes. I would look at 13 Mohawk trail Katonah for proximity to the Goldens bridge train too!
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