Home owners/Those buying a home ?

How did you choose what town you wanted to live in? DH and I decided Nassau we want to live in mostly based on proximity to city, family, etc. Now we have to narrow to a town.

We have been doing tons of research on school districts, taxes and house prices and things like that. We have visited some towns but it feels like we have a long list.

We are also not looking for a starter home so we want to make sure we are extremely happy with our choice. We want a town where we not only like the house but the people too! (PS I have moved like 4 times in the past 7 years but I always lived where it made sense for me at the time and I always knew it was temporary. Buying is much different than renting.)

What are your suggestions for someone beginning their search for a permanent home? Websites? things you did?

Thanks.

Nassau is tough for starter homes b/c proximity to NYC means that it will be more expensive than a comparable home in some areas of Suffolk. You may want to consider staying away from the North Shore of Nassau, since those neighborhoods are very pricey, and if you're commuting, they are not as easy to commute from as some of the central Nassau stations like Hicksville.

The single most important factor that you need to consider is Location. Whenever you are looking at a home, remember that you can do anything in terms of home improvement, but you cannot pick the house up and move it to a different town or neighborhood. Drive around the neighborhood at different times of the day/night and different days of the week before you make a decision to buy. You don't want to be disappointed in your decision after you move in!

Have you considered Western Suffolk? You never know where you will find a good deal that meets your requirements.

Are you working with any RE agents? Make sure to use a different agent for different areas that you are searching in.

Don't look in the paper (if you can help it). All the listings in the paper are the 'gems' and usually are not all that is available or necessarily considered starter-homes. Some websites that we used were Realtor.com or MLSLI.com - but, always double check with a realtor to confirm that a lisiting is still available before you go see it.

Newsday is also a good resource for the School Report. School district is an important consideration when buying a home - not just in case you have children - but for resale value. If you are in a high rated school district, your property will be more desirable in years to come. You can search for infomation about the school district in the neighborhood you are interested in. Your realtor should also provide this info.

Make a list of *absolute* requirements that your new home must have. Then write down some things that would be 'nice to have.' Share the list with your realtors so that they are looking for quality listings that will meet your needs. Do not let anyone waste your time!

I agree with Claud about Nassau being not easy to find a starter home in. Also, the entire county is going thru a tax reassesement. Be very careful that you are not buying a home that you do not know what your taxes will be. Some are going up thousands of dollars per year! You don't want to find out AFTER you move in that the following year your tax bill will be $7K, instead of $5K.
And keep your list of 'requirements' realistic. Wanting 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, an EIK, dinning room, fireplace, finished basement, 1 acre of land etc... is not really a starter home.

We went through the same thing. There are so many nice towns on LI its a difficult decision. I commute into NYC and DH works in Mineola so we (mostly me) decided to limit our choices by sticking to convenient LIRR train lines. That narrowed it down to the Port Washington line, Babylon line and Mineola. Anything on the Port Washington line was out of our price range but I would have loved to stay North, we looked for a long time in Mineola and didnt find anything, finally decided to look on the south shore * Merrick - Massapequa* and ended up in Wantagh. We should be closing in the next two weeks.


If you decide to look in the * Merrick - Massapequa* area I have a great realtor to share.

At the time we bought our house (October 2000), there were a few things we considered: (Niecy, like you we weren't looking for a starter home, we wanted to settle and stay put)

- Location to transportation and my hubby's family owned business in Queens (so that eliminated Suffolk Cty);

- school district for when we have kids, although we would most likely send them to a private or Catholc school;

- the area in general - how was it in terms of population, community amenities, etc.

We looked all over, from Long Beach and Rockville Centre to the north shore like Port Washington and Roslyn.

Everything we saw on the south shore was big house, little property. Everything on the north shore was big house, big property and of course, big money. However, it must have been the right time and the right house for us because we found a house in East Norwich (just north of Syosset and south of Oyster Bay). We have a great house we can grow into (4-bedroom, 3-bath) in a great area with a huge yard and a decent school district (although we most likely would send kids to Catholic school).

We are very happy we got the house when we did. We were just reassed because we are in Nassau County and we were pretty lucky - our taxes went up a few hundred dollars, but they were relatively low to begin with.

there are so many things to look for, and everyone has different ideas of what they want. It took us 2.5 years to find our house. Don't get frustrated, something will come up that's meant for you.

Good Luck!!

P.S. We found our house through an 'Open House' we saw advertised in Newsday. We bid and it was accepted, then once we had the engineers report, we lowered our bid again and they still took it. Before that we just went ot all open houses. We never had a real estate broker working for us.

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION! Remember this is the biggest investment you will ever make and location accounts for everything and with a great location comes great schools, great shopping.

Some people choose location on various reasons, we chose our house based on the neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods which are just as important and we got a great school district.

If on the other hand you are waiting to have children and don't feel you will be in the house in the next 5 years that will give you more options to get your dream house.

We just bought our first home in Nassau County, so I can offer you what we went through! But first, I agree with Claud, Michele, Fran and chmlenger ... all some great advice.

We picked Nassau County primarily because of me. I grew up in NHP and Rob grew up in Williston Park. Most of our family lives around those areas and the travel to NYC is so great. My biggest reason was to be near my parents ... my mom doesn't like to drive far and I wanted to be near her 'driving' range. So, we bought in Mineola Lawns. School was important too and I did my research. Newsday, Real Estate agents, people who live in the town. We asked EVERYBODY what they thought of the school district that we were in. I even had two friends that student taught in the grammar school that I hounded for info.

I knew that I didn't want to live on South Shore (even though there are some great towns there) and we wanted to be more Central/North. Mineola is close to everything which was important to us as well.

We didn't buy a starter home either ... but we did buy a house that needed a face-lift. Our house has plenty of room and possibilities to stay there forever (5 bedrooms, 2 baths, rear dormer, full basement, attached garage) but I do think there is a great possibility that we may move. However, we don't have to and that's a great comfort. Who knows what the future holds, but we do have a dream house and can't afford that house just yet. We love the block and the neighbors are friendly ... that's important too.

But like Michele said, watch the taxes. Our taxes are more than what we thought (pre-assessment) and that's with checking with the town and village.

As far as finding it ... we just kept going to open houses, we learned a lot and found our house!

The only bad part is the value .. honestly, like Claud said ... you get a little more in Suffolk County for the money. My husband still complains that for the money we paid, we should have gotten a completely new house! If only we lived out of state!

Thanks for the replies and advice. There was lots of good and interesting info on this thread. (I think some people misread my first post but I am NOT looking for a starter home but that's ok)

Like some one said LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. That is what is so important. Like some we have started by looking at the LIRR map and schedule. We know you can get more for our money in Suffolk but location (being close to NYC, Queens and closer to SI) is really our priority. We want to be in Nassau. We both can work crazy hours in NYC and esp. when we have kids the commute is an important factor (as well as not being too far from family..my parents don't even drive). I like hearing how many of you narrowed your search it has been very helpful so far!

Do you recommend going to realtors in many different locations or do you think open houses for a starting point of seeing what is there and what neighborhoods are like?

Niecy, I'm sorry...I think I misread, and thought you were looking for a starter home. Any rate, I think that you should do what makes you comfortable as far as using a realtor, or just going to open houses to get started. Perhaps a few open houses in a key neighborhood would give you a glimpse of what's available. Then, if you see a home you're interested in that's listed w/a realtor, give them a call and take notes...if you 'click' w/the realtor, that's a plus. It makes the whole process much easier to deal with.

I don't see any reason why you can't do both - use realtors and search on your own.

You could try to do it all on your own, but it may take a lot longer. Like someone else said, they didn't work w/a realtor, and it took them 2.5 years to find a house that was right for them. Perhaps that was by design.

I didn't have that much time to play around with. We've been living with my parents since beginning of August and I want to be settled! We worked with several realtors and found our house at the end of October. It's not a starter home either - I wanted something that we'd be able to settle into and have a little room to grow. We've been apartment dwellers who move around alot, so the thought of having to move in less than 15-20 years turns my stomach. But as Cira said, who knows what the future holds?

Niecy ... we found our house in less than 6 months -- on our own. I think you need to do both. The realtors work for the seller ... not you - so they are obligated to the seller, so don't reveal to much information to them, if you do use a realtor. Claud gave some great advice ... go to some open houses, it will open your eyes to how much people want for their cra* ... we saw a lot of dives! A least, it will get you familiar with the area, blocks and people. Certain areas of certain neighborhoods can be better than the other.
The commute to NYC was important to us too ... I think Mineola has the BEST train station/schedule. When I have school late ... I can usually get a train within the half hour versus when I lived in NHP ... talk about waiting 1 - 2 hours. Plus the parking ... I was not going to pay $3 to park a day (ask about that too ... some towns you need to belong to the village to get a parking pass). But I do have village taxes and that equates to the $3 a day - so go figure. Also, some towns ... you can't park on the street and so on ... I know in Mineola, when it snows you need to move your car from the street. So, extending our 1 car driveway to 2 is in the works for next winter!
There are so many factors to consider but whatever area you are looking into - ask on the Board, there's bound to be someone who knows it!

When we started our search we too were somewhat undecided as to where we wanted to live - we new we wanted RVC however, didn't know if we could afford a home there. Anyway we started going to open houses on weekends in all of the surrounding areas - we also would do research on the internet - but I felt the best way was looking at homes in these areas and then we would talk to everyone we knew about where we were looking. You will be very suprised as to what people will say - we looked in Farmingdale, Wantagh, Merrick, Oceanside, Floral Park, Massapequa, Seaford, Garden City and Rockville Centre - we might of seen some homes in a few other areas. Anyway you will see once you see a few homes and start to discuss the area you will know what the pros and cons are - we came very close to buying a home in Merrick and Floral Park - however, we kept going back to that we really wanted RVC - in the end that's where we bought - however, I am not at all sorry that I looked in all those different areas. Don't be in a rush and so lots and lots of research. Ask questions on this web-site - I did and got a lot of important info. from everyone.
Don't let anyone tell you that you must narrow it down to one area - you need to look in different areas at first and then you will begin to narrow it donw. At the end we only looked in Floral Park, Garden City and Rockville Centre - but we were only able to do that after looking in those other places first -
good luck and keep us posted.
One more thing at first we were buying house instead of location - whcih i know is a mistake it's just difficult not to do at first - b/c you will se a home you love in not such a great location - while you are in the home you want it - however, in the end we bought location - and I am so happy we did. We've done so much work to the home and I am starting to really love it - as everyone says you can alsays make chages to the home but you can't change where it is. try to remember that.