Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

Hi,

I've always been a lurker, but finally decided to join. I love this forum! I'm from a nice area in Queens, but we are looking to move to Nassau (or possibly Western Suffolk, not too far from Nassau border).

Please help a Queens girl who knows nothing about LI figure out some nice neighborhoods to look into! I had no idea this would be so overwhelming.

Budget: up to $600k
Property taxes: up to $12,000
Near transportation and LIRR (we'd like to stay under 1.5 hr door-to-door commute to Manhattan)
Nice, safe, desirable, family-friendly neighborhood
Good school district

Does not matter to us whether it's North vs. South shore, but we want to be away from flood zones please! (Especially with all the remapping and exorbitant rates after Sandy.)

Sorry for the long post, and please let me know if I left anything out.

Thank you all so much for your suggestions!!!

Message edited 4/1/2013 9:07:44 PM.

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

I would check out Huntington VILLAGE. I stress the Village portion of that. South Huntington is great too but ONLY south of Jericho.

Message edited 4/1/2013 11:17:52 PM.

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

Hi there,
Do you have kids or are you planning to have some in the next five years? The reason I ask is because that is another consideration when buying. It was for us. We moved from Brooklyn to long island and based our search first on school district, then commute and style of living. We ended up choosing the North Shore and a small eclectic village. Our village is one square mile and everyone is so nice. Feel free to message me if you would like more information. Good lick with everything

Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

As a resident of Huntington village as I was reading your post and Huntington immediately came to mind, but I am biased :) As other posters have said, different areas of Huntington have different feels so you want to make sure that you work with someone who knows the area well to make sure you are looking in areas that match what you need.

Finding a house on Long Island can be so overwhelming, there's so many choices and townships and villages and villages within townships, and hamlets and...you get my drift. So here is the process I suggest people go through to start narrowing things down.

1. Consider whether you are interested in North Shore, South Shore or more of the center of the island. Each part of the island is very different geography wise, but each is awesome in their own way. The South Shore is more flat, while the North Shore is more wooded and hilly. The South Shore has the ocean beaches, while the North Shore beaches have the Sound. You mentioned being concerned about flood zones. There are still lots of homes on the South Shore that are not flood zones. Agents who work in that area are very knowledgeable about what homes are not in flood zones, especially after Sandy

2. Once you've figured out shore, then go to commute time. You said you want no more than a 1.5 hour commute. I assume that's door to door? Depending on how close to the train station your house is and how close your office is to Penn Station, on the Port Jeff line, you're looking at Huntington to Northport being as far east as you can go and stay in the 1.5 hour mark. On the South Shore, you are looking at Babylon being the farthest east.

3. As a general matter, you get more for your money the farther east you go, but the commute is shorter the farther west. So decide which is more important to your family and use that as your starting point to investigate communities. Places like this forum and city-data.com are great resources to get opinions of areas by residents who live there.

4. Go to greatschools.net or news day and start researching the school districts, since you mentioned that was important to you. In my opinion, I think this should be the last step, because almost every area has a district or districts that are desirable to some extent. Others think that school districts should be your first consideration.

When you've narrowed it down to a few areas, it may make sense to engage a real estate agent in each of those areas (or one for all areas if you prefer). At the same time it may make sense to reach out to a mortgage broker to discuss preapprovals and make certain you are set on your price range. It can make the process go so much smoother, and any offer you make will require that preapproval letter, so may as well start the process early.

If you have any questions about Huntington or the North Shore/middle island in general, I'd be happy to answer! Don't get me wrong, I'm also happy to answer questions about the South Shore, but my answers may not be all that helpful and there are people on here way more qualified than I am to discuss the South Shore.

Best of luck, it's such an exciting process!

Message edited 4/2/2013 9:05:52 AM.

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

We live in Northport ( which is the next town East of Huntington ) and Love it !!! I grew up here, moved away for a bit and just recently purchased the home I grew up in ! My STBDH works in Nassau and the commute is 15 minutes. The schools are GREAT , the community is great .. And it is close to everything including the train!

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

There are tons of towns that meet your criteria so it would probably be really helpful if you narrowed it down a bit. What's most important to you? Larger, newer house? Larger lot size? Top school district? Commute (big difference between a 45 minute commute and a 1.5 hour commute). Downtown area/main street? Do you care if you have a smaller, older house in a "nicer" area or do you want to live in an area/house where everything is more similar. With a 600K budget, you could opt either way. Do you want to be closer to Queens, or do you prefer to be further east?

We went through a big house/town search recently and these were the things that we had to think about before we could commit to a new house/town. Also, it can't hurt to stop by a few open houses in areas that you may be interested in.

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

Massapequa is very nice, so is Lindehurst where I live.

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

I always recommend Floral Park to prospective buyers. Your price range and taxes are about right (taxes should be a bit lower).

FP is c. 35 minutes from Manhattan on the LIRR. I walk to the station every day. Love the town and the people. The houses are mostly on 40 x 100 lots, I think, ours is at least, but DH and I love it. We like being on LI with easy access to the city, trains, airport, major highways. School district is good (I think we get a 9/10 on ratings websites). We've lived here for 7 years and really love everything about it. GL!!

Message edited 4/2/2013 2:42:58 PM.

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

Rockville Centre.

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

I live in Farmingdale and think its a great neighborhood to raise a family.

Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

Port washington. Good school district, great commut, great community. I live in a neighboring town and go to Port often bc I love it-- the only thing is its far north so you are a bit of a drive from teh expressway.

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

im in Babylon now and we love it here - schools are really good. Were actually moving to Fort Salonga bc DH wants more property, which also has really good schools.

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

All of my ILs live in Seaford and it has a great reputation.

2 live below Merrick Rd. (floodzone) but my SIL who lives a couple blocks North of the train station just sold her house and it was on the market for less than a week.

The only thing negative I have "heard" (Note: doesn't mean it's true) about the school district is sometimes the budget doesn't get passed, there's not a lot of diversity and some people say that there are a lot of spoiled kids with a drug problem.

BUT, IMHO, you could run into those issues EVERYWHERE.

There are quite a few ladies on this site who live in that area and I have not heard anything bad to be said in general.

My SIL just bought in Massapequa Park, within walking distance of the main town area, and that's also a nice area. I have heard similar trickles of negativity about this school district for the same reasons mentioned above.

I live on the South Shore, just over the border in Suffolk, but we're in the flood zone. (Not on paper but we were still affected by Sandy). I do like Amityville (South of Sunrise), my area (Amity Harbor/Copiague School District), Lindenhurst and Babylon as well.

I would say my area the houses are a lot cheaper and it's more of a blue collar/working class area.

Re: Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

Floral Park 100%!!!

It has all those things you listed and more with a shorter commute.

Please recommend areas in LI to a lost newbie!!!

East willston! my husband is a commuter and walks 4 mins to the train station.