What are some good areas in Western Suffolk?

I live in Nassau and am looking to move to Western Suffolk as well. I have heard that Sachem is a great school district. Some towns I have researched and heard good things about are Holbrook, Lake Ronkonkoma, Smithtown, Nesconset, Lake Grove, and Hauppauge. Good luck!

Kimberly

Sachem is a VERY large school district....2 high schools.....

Sayville/West Sayville is a nice area, good schools...right off the Southern State

Oakdale is an awesome area...DH grew up here and went to Connetquot School Districts...again right off Southern State/Sunrise Hwy

Bohemia is also Nice.....

on the north shore....you got Smithtown, St. James, Stony Brook/East Setauket/Setauket in the three Village school district...very good schools...very close off the Norther State which actually turns into route 347.

I agree with Shana, Sachem is good but HUGE!

FH and I just went throught this and looked in many of the areas named above. But it really depends on your price range

If you are looking at homes in the range of 400K, (from west to east) Northport, Greenlawn, Kings Park, Smithtown, Nesconset Lake Grove, St James, Seatuaket are really nice and on the north Shore. South Shore, same price range East Islip, Oakdale, Sayville.

In the 350K or under range, Islip Terrace (south shore) Ronkonkoma, some parts of Lake Ronkonkoma, Holbrook, Holtsville.

Dix hills is really nice, very close to teh LIE but VERY pricy in both house prices and taxes.

Obvioulsy this is just from our experience, but we looked at homes in 98% of these areas (looked at over 50 houses) and we foudn that in teh areas that I listed for the 400K range, anything under 375 needs extensive work. But that depends on what your tastes are, FH and I wanted a home that needed minimal work because we felt for 350K we didnt want to shell out another 50K in renovations and we didnt want to begin our marriage in a constant state of repair. It also depends on the size of house you are looking for because we saw a reall nice house in Greenlawn for 350K it was really beautiful BUT it was 2 bd 1 bth EIK and living room and small basement! that was it, for that money I wanted more house!

Good Luck!!!



ETA: Also wanted to add, your tastes dictate what you find a 'nice area' for instance my FH lives in Kings Park, he loves it! I like it...for a place where my IL's live, however I would never want to live there because to me everything is too far away. I grew up on the South Shore, where as a kid I could walk to anything, and now I can be at any type of store, fast food etc in less than a 5 minute car ride, from KP the nearest Taco bell is like 10+ minutes. So to me convience was important.

Kelly9904 answered your question very wisely, 'Good areas' are said to those with school dist that rate high in the state, thus making them more desireable and saught after areas. You can find what these are if you go under MLSLI.com, you can search by school dist. or town...make your selection, click on neighborhoods preview, next click on schools, the ranking is based on a scale from 1-100 and just like a test 65 is just passing but you want tou shoot for 75 or higher but no less then 65 .... If you dont plan to have childern then this wouldnt matter. But thses #'s are based on students test scores, parental involvemet, and school security and disciplinary problems.

Commack is a beautiful area (with blue ribbon schools too) but there are no homes under 350.000... and these are usually small homes that need to be updated.

What we did was look at Sachem school dist. & the towns that belong to that dist. then we drove around the areas...Basicly we found a bigger home with more land with Sachem schools, However, there are some parts of Farmingville that are not so great... the house we found was on a beautiful block, mini mansions being built around the corner, and a clean & great supermarket near by. So when you go see a house you like, check out the neighborhood and go in to stores ask the employees what they think about the area.