Re: Homeowner Question
Mary, honestly don't get yourself too hung up on an exact town. IMO, you need to set your priorities on a general area, research the school districts and property taxes and then work within your price range.
We didn't limit ourselves to a specific town b/c our needs were very different. Hubby planned to set up a home office (with the blessing of his employer), so a commute was not an issue; and I am a SAHM for the time being. Since we were moving back to NY from CA, the important thing was just physically being on Long Island. We started eliminating areas based on how I felt about them growing up (since my DH is not from LI). I knew I wanted to be within 30-40 min of my family, but I did not want to live in the town I grew up in. This sounds silly, but I thought it would make me feel like I'd never really 'gotten' anywhere in my life. I can't explain it, but maybe moving across the country for 3 years did that to me. But I digress.
We looked all over really. We would drive out to a town to see some open houses, and then try to get a feel of the town itself, to try and picture ourselves there. We mostly explored central and eastern Nassau - north and south shores. We saw a lot of homes in Bellmore/Merrick/Seaford/Wantagh and Bethpage/Massapequa/Mass Park. We eventually ventured into eastern and western Suffolk - again, north and south shore. We ended up seeing a lot of homes in the Sayville/Oakdale/Bohemia area and the Huntington/Northport/East Northport areas in Suffolk. For a few weeks, we even focused as far east as Manorville. Looking back, I am SO GLAD we did not move that far east.
The moral of my story is that we ended up buying in a great town, but one that we never spent much time in until we found THE house. We live on the Saint James/Smithtown border and we only looked at 4 houses in this area. Hard to believe even now, considering all the searching we did.
Good luck!! You'll have a better idea of towns as soon as you look around more and more.
We didn't limit ourselves to a specific town b/c our needs were very different. Hubby planned to set up a home office (with the blessing of his employer), so a commute was not an issue; and I am a SAHM for the time being. Since we were moving back to NY from CA, the important thing was just physically being on Long Island. We started eliminating areas based on how I felt about them growing up (since my DH is not from LI). I knew I wanted to be within 30-40 min of my family, but I did not want to live in the town I grew up in. This sounds silly, but I thought it would make me feel like I'd never really 'gotten' anywhere in my life. I can't explain it, but maybe moving across the country for 3 years did that to me. But I digress.
We looked all over really. We would drive out to a town to see some open houses, and then try to get a feel of the town itself, to try and picture ourselves there. We mostly explored central and eastern Nassau - north and south shores. We saw a lot of homes in Bellmore/Merrick/Seaford/Wantagh and Bethpage/Massapequa/Mass Park. We eventually ventured into eastern and western Suffolk - again, north and south shore. We ended up seeing a lot of homes in the Sayville/Oakdale/Bohemia area and the Huntington/Northport/East Northport areas in Suffolk. For a few weeks, we even focused as far east as Manorville. Looking back, I am SO GLAD we did not move that far east.
The moral of my story is that we ended up buying in a great town, but one that we never spent much time in until we found THE house. We live on the Saint James/Smithtown border and we only looked at 4 houses in this area. Hard to believe even now, considering all the searching we did.
Good luck!! You'll have a better idea of towns as soon as you look around more and more.
