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Queens vs. Nassau

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dpli	DH and I are starting to think about buying a house. One of us is from Queens, the other from Nassau. We are debating on whether or not to look in Queens or Nassau for a house (preferably as close to the border as possible). For those of you who are/were looking in these areas, what are/were the pros and cons of each. For example - when does the higher price in Queens get offset by the higher taxes in Nassau? TIA! Posted 5/11/05 4:04 PM
MrsR	we went through the same debate and ended up buying in queens (hollis hills). It had to be the perfect house though. We decided we would rather put the money into the house than put it into taxes. There are some nice areas on both sides of the border though - so why limit yourself - look on both places...that is what we did. Posted 5/11/05 4:13 PM
ckdk	I would probably think about school districts if you are planning on having children/have children... Posted 5/11/05 4:13 PM
True-Joy	dh and i had had the same problem but money determined our situation because i really couldnt aford to live in the parts of queens that i wanted. Posted 5/11/05 6:09 PM
JenniferEver	Queesn ahs lower taxes but higher car insurance, also queens makes you a NYC resident, so I think it gives your children access to more specialized programs in the school system if they need them. FH and I want to stay in the city so our kids can be in the gifted programs and go to stuyvesant Posted 5/11/05 6:54 PM
MrsProfessor	I love Queens but the deal breaker for me was the high schools. Even Bayside HS, which is in a lovely area, has lots of problems. If we stayed where we are, (neighborhood-wise) that would be our future kids' zone school. I would love to think that my kids would be brilliant enough to get into one of the elite high schools, but I would not want to take that chance. Plus, houses here are out of our price range. Posted 5/11/05 7:06 PM
JenniferEver	There are a lot fo GREAT High Schools in manhattan. If the kids are on the upper end, there are the science HS, there's townsend harris, hunter, and then there are all of the many, many other specialized high schools cropping up, for arts, environmental science, law, and they're even building a new HS for architecture and urban planning in my neighborhood. Maybe the zone schools aren't great, but I think the magnet schools are very very good. Posted 5/11/05 7:27 PM
MrsERod	Message edited 12/11/2006 5:03:39 PM. Posted 5/11/05 7:57 PM
AJsMommy122	I live in Queens. I rather put my money into a house then into taxs. The high schools arent that bad... but then again I plan on sending our children to St. Francis Prep where DH & I both went Posted 5/11/05 8:06 PM
Eireann	We are in this position! DH and I are both from Flushing/Whitestone. We have been looking to buy for almost a year. We started exclusively in Floral Park Village and Bellerose Village, being that they were on the border, had beautiful houses and had a Queens-y feel. We were always going to open houses etc. The house prices were affordable to us, but the taxes are insane...I mean, come on, $9000!!! Then, we found out we were expecting a baby and decided to begin looking in our area exclusively again, since my mom and MIL will be watching the baby and they live very close to us. Anyway, in months of looking, we've been inside ONE house! We are pretty particular, but haven't seen anything we'd really consider buying. The prices are crazy, but taxes affordable. Now this works better for us actually, because we want to send our kids to Catholic school. If we are paying Nassau taxes we can't afford to do that (incidentally, I went to SFP too). In my way of thinking right now, tuition is temporary; taxes are permanent and only go up. Maybe the solution is to buy a "fixer-upper" in Queens, I don't know. It's so frustrating!!! I'm sorry this turned into a rambling vent rather than advice!!! Posted 5/11/05 8:16 PM
Redhead	i think i wouldn't narrow you areas down until you are actually out there and going and looking at the houses.... I think you should look in both areas and then narrow down by house and taxes Posted 5/11/05 8:18 PM
MrsERod	Message edited 12/11/2006 5:04:00 PM. Posted 5/11/05 8:22 PM
Redhead	Posted by MrsERod Posted by Redhead i think i wouldn't narrow you areas down until you are actually out there and going and looking at the houses.... I think you should look in both areas and then narrow down by house and taxes and don't forget the school districts as well!! true i am just feel ...go out there...talk to an agent first...then see where to narrow down! Posted 5/11/05 8:27 PM
dpli	Posted by Eireann We are in this position! DH and I are both from Flushing/Whitestone. We have been looking to buy for almost a year. We started exclusively in Floral Park Village and Bellerose Village, being that they were on the border, had beautiful houses and had a Queens-y feel. We were always going to open houses etc. The house prices were affordable to us, but the taxes are insane...I mean, come on, $9000!!! Now this works better for us actually, because we want to send our kids to Catholic school. If we are paying Nassau taxes we can't afford to do that (incidentally, I went to SFP too). In my way of thinking right now, tuition is temporary; taxes are permanent and only go up. Not a ramble, because this is sort of my way of thinking too. For the money we are thinking of spending, we thought Bellrose might be good. But when I started looking on websites, it seemed like whatever we could afford in Queens was either attached (not for us- we'd rather just stay in the rent stabilized apt. over that) or on a plot that was tiny. I am thinking Catholic school too if we are in Queens for the same reason 12 yrs. of tuition might be cheaper than Nassau taxes. The other thing is we have to pay NYC income tax if we stay here too.... Message edited 5/11/2005 9:15:11 PM. Posted 5/11/05 9:13 PM
dpli	Thanks everyone, for your input! I am sort of just looking through ads and on websites, so not ready to really look. Just looking for other things to consider. Posted 5/11/05 9:14 PM
Leeners	Posted by Redhead i think i wouldn't narrow you areas down until you are actually out there and going and looking at the houses.... I think you should look in both areas and then narrow down by house and taxes That's what we're doing for these areas as well. Ultimately we're going to decide how much per month we're able to pay for both taxes and mortgage (and, in our case, pmi). That in itself will narrow it down for us and then it'll just be where we find the best fit for us. As far as school 'districts' go, it doesn't work the same way in NYC as it does in LI. You're not zoned for any specific high school, you have to apply to all (sort of like the co-ops for Catholic high school). Anyway, ideally you don't want your kid to commute 3 hours each way but they are eligible to go to any school in the 5 boroughs they get into. Besides, and this may just be for us, the house we can afford now at 26 is not the house we intend on staying in long enough to send our kids (that don't yet exist) to school. So, the district has to be decent enough for resale but not necessarily good enough for us to send our kids to. Posted 5/11/05 10:27 PM
JenniferEver	Posted by MrsERod Posted by marymoon Queesn ahs lower taxes but higher car insurance, also queens makes you a NYC resident, so I think it gives your children access to more specialized programs in the school system if they need them. FH and I want to stay in the city so our kids can be in the gifted programs and go to stuyvesant i'm sorry, I just have to laugh at this... what makes you assume your kids will be in a gifted program and will go to stuyvesant?? i'm extremely curious about this!!?? I was going to add in the original post, that IF they can. Between FH and I, if our kids aren't smart (we were both in gifted prgrams and met at Stuy) we'll kill ourselves...LOL.. No, I'm jk... but if our kids are gifted, and genetically, there's a good chance, then we would defintiely want them in the NYC pubnlic schools, that's where you get the best opportunities. Posted 5/12/05 4:39 PM
Anastasia	Posted by MrsERod Posted by marymoon Queesn ahs lower taxes but higher car insurance, also queens makes you a NYC resident, so I think it gives your children access to more specialized programs in the school system if they need them. FH and I want to stay in the city so our kids can be in the gifted programs and go to stuyvesant i'm sorry, I just have to laugh at this... what makes you assume your kids will be in a gifted program and will go to stuyvesant?? i'm extremely curious about this!!?? I was thinking the same thing!!!!! You never know how smart your offspring is going to be! I work with autistic children and from my experience their parents are usually very well educated. Sometimes I feel like the smarter the parent is, the higher chance of autism. I wouldn't send my kids to Stuy.... It doesn't have the reputation it used to. Queens all the way ! Posted 5/12/05 7:16 PM