LI Neighborhoods - Homeowners

I am a bridetobe looking for advice from the newlyweds. I am starting to also look at houses on LI (early stages).

Where did you go for info on the different neighborhoods, schools, etc.? I am a Queens/NYC girl and am looking to narrow down my search.

So far we have just did some driving around and looking at the LIRR schedule (want to be close enough to NYC - -less than an hour from Penn). I saw some pricing using a li realtor site but I want to find out about neighborhoods and what they are like.

Any suggestions for good resources?

Well this board is a great place to start :) I got alot of my 'education' about neighborhoods from my realtor, he was very friendly, open, honest and told it like it is. Im not very familiar with the Nassau towns, since we mostly looked and moved to Suffolk. My brother moved to Massapequa Park, I beleive under an hour to Penn, great area. If you must stay 30 minutes to Penn, it looks like you wont be able to go very far into long island, and maybe even Queens, and from what i know that distance (New Hyde Park, Roslyn) you will pay more for less property and less house than if you looked a bit further out. Again, this is something to think about, but the distance to NYC may be your top priority and thats what you should focus on.

I would call around to some realtors, and hopefully you will find one that is sociable and will take the time to educate you. If you give your realtor some ideas on what is important to you (School district important or not ? , what type of home do you want/not want ? Walking distance to LIRR ?
Big backyard or doesnt matter ? What type of things are you looking for in a neighborhood/home? Write yourself a list, then share it here, and call a few realtors. This doesnt mean you MUST purchase through realtors, we also went to MANY 'for sale by owners' and actually were able to get a feel for the areas when we drove to the homes, saw the nearby homes, and shopping centers, saw what major parkways we were close to, whether or not it was in a private location or whether it was too close to a schoolyard or gas station. These are all things im throwing out to get your mind started rolling.

Sorry i rambled, hope it helped !

Good luck and keep us posted !!

My husband and I are homowners in Nassau County. We bought back in 2000, before we were engaged. At the time I was living in Rockville Centre and commuting to Manhattan. Very easy commute (33 minutes express). The house we bought is on the north shore, and I began taking the train from Syosset. I have no complaints except the ride was 55 minutes on a good day, and then I had to get across town and then uptown. and hour and a half each way turns into a 3 hour day commuting. That time spent commuting was much more valuableto me, so in February of this year, I found a job on LI and enjoy my 12 minute commute. :)

The point of my rambling is, if you are looking for a town that's in close proximity to a train station, an hour may not seem like a long commute, but after a while it wears on you. That said, places like Rockville Centre, Lynbrook, Roslyn, Port Washington, Great Neck, etc. offer good communities with good city commutes via the LIRR.

Beware, unless you know your realtor, they will feed you anything to buy - remember they are working on commission. I'm not saying that because we had a bad experience, but several realtors pushed us to no end. We held out and once we found our house, we are very happy. We are in a great school district, however, when we have kids, we hope to send them to private schools anyway.

Good Luck!!

My husband and I bought our house in Massapequa and the commute (just the LIRR part) is generally 50 minutes. There are lots of express trains during peak hours. A good website to give you ideas about neighborhoods is homeadvisor.com. We also lived in an apartment in Babylon at one point and surprisingly enough, the commute from there was also 50 minutes, mainly because there are so many trains and lots of express trains leaving from there. The problem there was the parking - really hard.

Having grown up and lived in Brooklyn until I moved in with my then-boyfriend now husband, I have to say that I agree with the poster who said the commute wears on you. While its not a bad commute, your day starts early and ends late. For example, I leave my house at 6:50 every morning to get a spot to take the 7:14 train which gets me to Penn at like 8:00. Then, at night, if I take a 5:36 express, I'm still not back into my house until 6:45 at least. The train part is easy - it's just a long day. By Friday, I am wiped out even after doing this for several years now! Just another factor to keep in mind! Good Luck in you search!

Bride02 - you are looking in the same exact areas we are thinking about. We are waiting till next Spring though. All of those towns come highly recommended. I know alot of towns have an express train from Penn. My friend lives in Merrick and there's one train, if she catches, can get her home with 20 minutes shaved off her commute.

Any which way you look at it, if you work in the city, there will be a commute. I live in Queens right now and it takes me 1 hour to get home from Midtown. Even when I lived in the city, it took me 40 minutes to get from E 79th to E 46th - unless I wanted to take a cab everyday. Only when I lived 6 blocks from my office, did I have an effortless commute. The thing that seems least appealing to me about the NYC/LI commute is Penn Station, that place is like a zoo at rush hour! Once we have the baby, I am hoping to find a 4 day work week job on LI (of course at the same salary!! LOL) It's all trade off.

My brother lives in Bethpage, which is nice and their taxes are subsidized by LILCO - but truthfully, the power lines make me nervous. Other areas that are nice are Roslyn, Port Washington but taxes can be really really high on the North Shore closer to the city, and houses in those areas are definitely high priced. I have family in Malverne and the schools are good there too. Definitely check out www.mlsli.com you can search for houses in different areas and get a feel for what is out there - it's updated often and there are pics too.

Best wishes!

Elizabeth...
I live in Bellmore now, the town is great... bellmore villiage is soo cute. they do this festival every year.. i just love everything about the area except the price of the homes...we just started looking (we are still saving) but i heard that it takes a while.. you wouldnt beleive what these realtors are showing us,, for 300K and more places with no basement little master bedrooms, not even big enough for queen size bed.. washer dryer in kitchens! we have now started to begin the search for a fixer upper,.. good luck with your search and im going to check out that website now!! thanks!

Bride 02 - Do you know anything about the LIRR parking situation in Bellmore? Thats the next town on our list to explore.

We have been looking in the Williston/Albertson/Mineola area but haventy had any luck yet.

Fran ,
There is ALOT of parking in bellmore.. they just built another lot as well... the only problem is i think everyone uses this lot.. if you dont get to the station by 730-8am in the morning you wont get a spot...but other than that the bellmore station is a dream.. there are ticket agents in the window ( not all stations have that) a clean waiting room... s newsstand, and a coffee truck, lots of parking and the taxi station is directly accross the street..i hope you like bellmore.. i love it and plan to stay here for a while if i can find the right home....bedford ave is great.. its located acrross the trainstation and is the cutest street with a playhouse and some resturants and pasty cafe's ...please feel free to ask away any questions on bellmore!!!

Thanks Bride02. I think we are going to start looking in Bellmore this weekend. We plan to check out what ever open houses we see in Newsday or come across driving around. Is there a big difference between N. Bellmore, Bellmore and S. Bellmore? I know we can forget about S.Bellmore on the water but is there a noticable distinction between the areas?