Choosing the Suburbs Over Brooklyn
Are would-be Brooklynites flocking to the suburbs? The cover story in yesterday’s real estate section of the Times looks at how relatively cheap home prices in the suburbs are luring New Yorkers who find they can get way more bang for their buck in parts of Westchester, Connecticut and Jersey than in the city. While…
Are would-be Brooklynites flocking to the suburbs? The cover story in yesterday’s real estate section of the Times looks at how relatively cheap home prices in the suburbs are luring New Yorkers who find they can get way more bang for their buck in parts of Westchester, Connecticut and Jersey than in the city. While the article mostly focuses on the widening price gap between Manhattan and suburban properties, it notes that some people who would’ve bought in Brooklyn are also finding the suburbs cheaper:
Ludovic and Fabienne Ledein, who live and work as jewelry designers in Dumbo, visited nearly a dozen lofts in Dumbo, Red Hook and Williamsburg looking for something to buy for less than $600,000. They needed enough space to work at home and to put up friends and relatives from Europe. But what they wanted cost more than twice what they could afford…They found their answer in Westchester County, in New Rochelle. For about $600,000, they bought 1,350 square feet in the newly renovated Knickerbocker Lofts, a converted factory downtown that was built 117 years ago.
Any readers contemplating a similar move?
Cashing Out of New York City [NY Times]
Photo by uicukie.
ok 11:43 how about Jericho, Cold Spring Harbor, Port Washington, Manhassett, Rockville Centre. Most of these are in fact considered better than Garden City. These aren’t just considered tops in Long Island but tops in the country!
1. 11:09, rerun those numbers. A tax gap of $16K is not unheard of for some suburbs, especially in North Jersey. And a couple earning $400K is unusual, even on this affluent site. They’d both need commuter tickets, btw.
2. armchairwarrior: Bay Ridge, Kensington, and Bensonhurst are not cheap. I think Kensington is the cheapest, but its houses are much smaller than what you’d find in suburbia.
3. 11:43, Syosset has good schools. Natalie Portman got a good education there. Dreary, landlocked little ‘burb, though.
If comparing to NYC Public Schools, I would say all of them save a few really bad ones.
Good arguments all around on this thread. As someone with a growing family (2 pre-school-age kids), the suburbs, with their decent schools, are a powerful draw. Don’t forget that you’re already financing public schools as a homeowner, so to pay private school tuition on top of that seems like a waste. If it costs me an additonal 10k a year in the burbs for decent schools to educate 2 children, it’s not a bad deal. Of course, you’re still paying that extra long after the kids have graduated.
On the other hand…city wage tax is a long-term drag, plus higher sales tax.
another good point made: Once you abandon the Manhattan/Brooklyn market, it’s hard to get back in unless your salary goes way up or you’re willing to seriously downsize.
10:56,
You assume that all the public schools on Long Island are great. Most equally suck, and we don’t have kids YET. So why should I be so concerned with schooling when we won’t have to face that music for another 6 years?
In 6 years time, we will have plenty of equity in our current Brownstone, to either buy in a better area, or maybe someone will work a miracle and the local schools will get better.
I still ain’t gonna pay those crazy taxes and still have to send the kids to private school.
You name me ONE good public school system in Nassau county,(Other than Garden City)???
I wouldn’t send my kids to school in Long Island or New Rochelle. Sure the kids do well on state standardized exams and they don’t have the overcrowding issues but I’ve been to my nieces school plays in Levittown and call me a snob but just a little too King of Queens/Every Loves Raymond for me. I’d rather send my kids to a good prep school than pay property taxes that would cover half a years tuition.
look at bayridge or bensonhurst or kengsington. it still cheap and nice area to live. why move all the way out of state lol.
pretty much in the same boat as 10:32: family of four renting a 2br, and the 3brs are out of my price range in neighborhoods such as the slope, windsor terrace, prospect heights, etc. we’ve looked seriously at sunset park, but even there is a bit unaffordable these days, after taking into account the renovations you’d have to do on a lot of places there, the possibility of paying for school. etc. the nj burbs, with all of their trade-offs, are looking like the option of choice. it’s definitely a wonderful inversion of the old pattern for brooklyn and for cities, though, that urban real estate is at such a premium to the suburbs.
“I think what’s really making the decision for us is that even if you go outside of the main “nice” neighborhoods like Park Slope etc., prices are still very very high in the less developed, less convenient and less safe areas like Clinton Hill and Bed Stuy.”
That sounds like code for any place where there aren’t too many black people.