Homeowner Question

we knew that we wanted to be closer to my sister and BIL, (they live in Holtsville) so we looked in Holtsville and Holbrook. We wanted to be in Sachem school district and Town of Brookhaven. Well we got the school district but not the town. We are in Town of Islip. We also didnt want to be too far away from the train station....we are like 3 mins away!!

My husband and I both commute to the city and if we could have afforded it, we would have bought a house in Massapequa, but the taxes in Nassau county are killers (not that Sufolk is any better!! )

The most important things to us were

cost
commute to work
how old the house is
neighborhood


We didn't care about school district b/c we are private school advocates

Hi Mary! I'm a realtor so I might be able to help you out. If you will be starting a family soon or already have a family, school system will be very important. Another big thing my customers look for are taxes...you'd be so shocked to see how one town might differ from the next!

You should also just drive around the different towns you think you would be interested in. See which neighborhood catches your eye the most!

Good Luck in your search and let me know if you have any questions!

It is different for every person. You have to take a lot of factors into consideration like everyone said: commute, cost, neighborhood, school.

My best recommendation is to drive around the neighborhood you are interested in (especially at night) and if you have the time you should go to the high school (though I guess you can't now) and check out the community. Good luck!:

The things that were most important for us were:
The school district
proximity to my job
being on the north shore

John & I are looking into all these aspects, true.

Taxes, location, commuter for him, schools...etc

Marcella also recommended we go to open houses to see what kind of home we are looking for.

True there are alot of deciding factors as the girls mentione, but of course everyone wants the best schools, neighborhood,and biggest houses but you have to decide what is the most important and be willing to compromise if you dont have all the money in the world, (similar to planning a wedding)LOL.
I know some peope who wouldnt mind living on a major road because their spouse has a business that would flourish there for example but really need to have excellent schools, so everyone has different situations.

Narrowing down is helpful but it is hard to generalize, there are lots of houses just take your time, it is a big decision.

I had that 'feeling' when i found my house and has felt like home since day one of our moving in.

Best of Luck!

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION

*Great School District was very important
*Property- hubby wanted a nice size backyard (the pool was just the luck of the draw )
*Private backyard-hubby refused to get a house with a backyard that could be 'watched' by neighbors or people walking by.
*I REALLY wanted a basement/lower level. It was a must since I have a big family and they come over often.
*We didnt want a fixer-upper. Hubby was never really handy (although he's getting really good! ) so we wanted move-in condition.
Of course there are projects to do in all homes, to make things to your liking.
Lots of things are give and take.
You can go for a home with bigger rooms and a smaller backyard, or take a home on a busy street for a better price and more 'home for the price.
You may be willing to take a trade of something if you see something you like. dont be so set on MUSTS and look at everything, you never know, you might see lots more that you like out there!

good luck!

I posed this same type of question when I first started looking. Here is how I made my decision - excuse my lengthiness.

First, off we knew commute was number 1 on our list being we both work in NYC. We are use to very short commutes growing up in the city all our lives. So we started by looking at the LIRR train schedules and looked for towns that met that criteria. (45 mins or less on express train and good frequency of trains that run this schedule)

Then we looked into school districts. We know we want to have a family one day and will be paying high taxes so we want to take advantage of public school systems. (if you are looking for a starter home - this may not be a huge priority at this time - we were not looking for starter so we had to consider this.)

We searched realty websites and looked towns at had houses in our price range that seemed to met our 'dream home requirements'.

Finnally, I wanted a town where I got that comfortable feeling. That was something only I could tell by being there and seeing what type of people lived there and stuff like that. It was also the most difficult for me.

We then picked a towns that met our paper criteria (price, commute, schools) and would take one town per Sunday and just drive around and go to tons of open houses. This is when we quickly ruled out towns that were not for us. Some were too yuppie for me or some the houses in our price range weren't worth it and some were just not for us. We found we kept always going back to one town.

Somehow once we settled on this town we didn't care as much about some things. Like we thought we definitely wanted a split level and bought a colonial. We always thought we wanted a huge yard and although we have a decent size by going south shore and close to NYC we had to give up some land. We always thought on paper we wanted north shore and wound up south shore. etc. etc. It was strange but so far it is working out for us!!!! I am very happy with my house (just in a adjustment period).

Good Luck! It may seem really hard and overwhelming but just go to open houses and stuff and have some fun with it and hopefully it will start to work itself out!

Mary, I have loved the north shore, for as long as I can remember. I feel very 'at home' here, and that feeling was important to me.

Our main priorities were, in no particular order:

-decent, quiet neighborhood
-school district
-not being on a main road
-proximity to certain family members and distance from others who cause a lot of heartache and trouble
-affordability
-decent sized yard (DH grew up upstate so he's used to a lot of property)

Fixer upper was fine because DH is very handy. Yes, we ended up with one but I expected to.

We looked all over Nassau Cty - and didn't concentrate on Suffolk at all because we both worked in the city at the time we bought our house. We lived on the south shore in our own apartments, so we looked every where from Long Beach, to Rockville Centre to Port Washington Oyster Bay.

We ended up chosing the north shore because the houses offered more land and we were not sandwiched next to one anther. Plus, hubby works in Queens and access to the LIE and NSP were critical in our decision. I ended up leaving my city job and now work 5 minutes from home.

We hope to send our future children to Catholic and/or private schools, but school district was important to us in the event that something would prevent us from affording a private education.

We also wanted a house to grow into, so it had to be at least 4 bedrooms. And we wanted a yard.

We got a great house that was move in condition, but needed some upgrades. We ended up gutting the inside and we are slowly rebuilding it to our liking!