Friday, April 6, 2018

The grass isn't greener in the suburbs

From the Real Deal:

High property taxes are virtually inescapable for people living within commuting distance of New York—and the new tax law will make this burden even worse.

Nine of the 10 counties in the U.S. with the highest average property tax bills from 2017 were in the New York City suburbs, with Westchester topping the list at $17,179, according to Bloomberg. The sole exception was Marin County in California, where the average bill was $11,295.

New York’s Rockland County took the number two spot, while Nassau County landed at number five. Connecticut’s Fairfield County was number eight, and the rest of the spots all went to counties in New Jersey: Essex, Bergen, Union, Morris and Passaic.

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

At least most of us still HAVE grass. Higher property taxes are an unfortunate ransom to pay to be able to escape the crap at the end of the day that you city dwellers cannot, and not have most of our schools overcrowded in a totally screwed up bureaucracy.

Anonymous said...

You get more services. I've been out looking for homes in Great Neck and other burbs and the taxes include school bus for all the kids and a late school bus for after school to home.

Anonymous said...

I bought a house in suffolk county and I am very happy I did. My taxes aren't bad at all. My brother lives in Nassau county in levittown and he gets smacked with so many taxes. But in all, I do think services in long island are much better than nyc. Like garbage pickup is excellent by me and you don't even have to call any sanitation dept to pick up your big stuff because my area just lets me put it out there and gives me a limit on how many things you can put out but they do come around and take the stuff without having to call any stupid numbers. Also, the schools out there are big and spacious and you get more bang for your Buck in housing size out there. So, I am happy I moved out this way because I hated what queens was starting to become, a trashy third world.

Anonymous said...

The culmination of "White flight "
is White fright.....fear of losing your utopian suburban retreat from the urban minorities.
Guess what?
The burbs are the new homes of urban minorities you were trying to escape. They' can't afford living in the big apple.

Tony Notaro said...

The co$t of having third worlders in our midst. Somebody's gotta pay for them......

Anonymous said...

I have grass and live in northeast Queens and my taxes are low. 23 minutes to Penn on LIRR. In Great Neck my taxes would be triple and I'd need to smoke some grass to get cultured.
LMAO!

Joe said...

I would not suggest Great Neck unless your a Persian Jew who can get along with your own. Drive black Benz with tinted windows like maniac's hit & run your car, and build worse crap then Bukharin's. Their children are even worse brats.
Great Neck plaza has become another shithole like Main Street Flushing, just as crowded with RUDE NASTY obnoxious people. --as nasty as it gets in NY my friend. Massive housing towers Great Neck have seated Democrats to run the town. The North Shore LIJ hospital importing in all these foreigners who in turn brought there extended family's, assholes who have taken over that whole neighborhood.
For every OK Iranian or Russian doctor you have perhaps 10 family members that are complete assholes who hate American's.

BTW the numbers are not accurate because lots in The Town of North Hempstead are larger and not being counted in Nassau County. A house with 2 bathrooms on the average 75 X 100 lot in Manhasset will run you over $22,000 in taxes. Munsey Park, Port Washington, Manhasset, Great Neck you must pay both Town of North Hempstead AND Nassau County taxes. You pay near double! the school taxes are murder.
Port Washington is becoming another Queens shithole with the Asians buying then burning down or destroying every old house. They drill holes in the roof, tear off the gutters, strip out and sell the wood floors then claim rotten timbers in 2 years.
Yes the grass is NOT greener, and why I moved back to Ridgewood. Why pay big $$ to put up with the same shit!

Anonymous said...

Do you really want you kids being educated by hippie liberals and growing up with mid eastern refuges and people like Reza Farahan? May I suggest you watch an episode or some clips of "Shahs of Sunset" on You Tube before putting your kids in a Great Neck school.

https://patch.com/new-york/greatneck/reza-farahan-is-coming-to-great-neck

Anonymous said...

Its not that bad when compared to the Greta San Francisco area.

Anonymous said...

"I have grass and live in northeast Queens and my taxes are low"

So do I and my taxes are $8,500 per year. That ain't low.

Joe said...

$8,500 per year is CHEAP for northeast Queens.
Long Island sucks because the school taxes alone are $8,500 -$10,000 because if you have kids or not they expect you to pay for all the Vegan club, Drama club, Lacrosse and football uniforms and equipment.
They have something like 5 administrator on salary (usually all related) for every child. Its a F_ing bullshit shakedown !!
$500,000 a year budget for football equipment alone at Manhasset High School and they pass the budget increase every year --fuck that!!

Gary W said...

White people move out of neighborhood(white flight) it's racist. White people move into a neighborhood(gentrification) it's racist.

Make up your minds people!

Anonymous said...

MS-13 is smart enough to settle in Suffolk too.

Anonymous said...

Remember there is no local income tax in the suburbs. So your 8500 taxes might be "low" in NE Queens but you are getting hit for nearly 4000 in city income taxes on your 100k salary.

Move to New Hyde Park, pay 12500 in property taxes, but 0 in local income taxes. All evens out.

Services are better in LI, especially beaches and pools. Would you prefer the Fort Totten pool or Christopher Morley? Rockaways or Nickerson? Your choice, but I would pick Nassau every time.

Anonymous said...

The suburbs in long island are nice to look at for the most part but there is no culture to speak of except in small enclaves.
Long Islanders fool themselves into thinking they're living the NYC life just because they live near a LIRR station.

You've got to be nuts to pay those taxes when you can play it smart in the city and invest the money saved in taxes in a second home well out of range of all the crap everyone's talking about here. Ten thousand a year saved in taxes put into a property a few hours outside of NYC will buy you sanity, solitude and peace.

There are still some reasonably nice neighborhoods in Queens, you just have to pick and choose and get involved in combating the bulls..t that Democrat administrations will try to foist on you. It's hard but can be done, remember we had Republican Mayors before this current DeBacle.

Schools in NYC are a big question, you have to know what you're doing once again. Choose in an area where you won't be crowded in with the children of people who think that the rest of society should be raising their kids and teaching them manners. There are still excellent specialized High Schools that have graduated more Nobel prize winners than most nations. Can't say that about Long Island unfortunately.

Anonymous said...

I have grass and live in northeast Queens and my taxes are low

Yeah, what was your closing price? If the house belonged to the prior generation of you or your wife, your case doesn't count.

And for those of you know-nothings of anything in Long Island that exists outside of Great Neck but are critical of it, please tell us, what schools in Queens beat these stats:

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-york/districts/great-neck-union-free-school-district/great-neck-north-high-school-13711
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-york/districts/great-neck-union-free-school-district/great-neck-south-high-school-13712

Anonymous said...


Joe said...

$8,500 per year is CHEAP for northeast Queens.
Long Island sucks because the school taxes alone are $8,500 -$10,000 because if you have kids or not they expect you to pay for all the Vegan club, Drama club, Lacrosse and football uniforms and equipment. 
They have something like 5 administrator on salary (usually all related) for every child. Its a F_ing bullshit shakedown !! 
$500,000 a year budget for football equipment alone at Manhasset High School and they pass the budget increase every year --fuck that!!

Quite a few people qualify for the STAR program. Also, I would rather my child be in a school where ther is actually some kind of room to breathe....unlike francis lewis high school that houses 4000 kids and sticks alot in crappy trailers! These schools were NOT BUILT to house that many kids! Plus the schools in nyc are horrible! They will pass even the dumbest kids because there is no room to leave kids back! They just push to pass them so they can house the next students coming in. Nyc was NOTHING special. I'm very glad I moved all the way out to long island. My commute might be expensive and sometimes a nightmare,but it's worth it to me. Better quality of life in long island and people are actually NORMAL out there and SPEAK ENGLISH in MOST PARTS. My neighbors names are Tim and Mary NOT Jin sung and Kim young who don't even speak a word of English and REFUSE to even learn !

JQ LLC said...

No culture from Long Island. I beg to differ. As far as the stuff I like:

There's the John Coltrane museum. Bands like Twisted Sister, Blue Oyster Cult, De La Soul and Public Enemy are from Long Island. (Those bands might get dissed here, I assume except for BOC) but their influence and impact are undeniable and still felt. WLIR/WDRE was one of the greatest stations in the nation for breaking new wave music.

And as someone once counterpointed me here a while back, South Hampton has great art galleries. And one of the best movies in the past 15 years was filmed in Montaux and Rockville Centre (eternal sunshine of the spotless mind).

As of right now with what's happening in the 5 boroughs, if I had the money I would be glad to shell out extra taxes to live in L.I.

Joe said...

"Quite a few people qualify for the STAR program"

I'm laughing !
Star program, you only get a max $646 tax credit back out of $20,000 taxes and that's ONLY if you’re over 65! It’s totally useless; my parents cant even cover cat food for Rusty the cat with that rebate!

Remember not everybody has kids, dependents or age over 65 so let me guess: --people like me don’t belong on Long Island right?
Enjoy your Pickett fence and going to church with Tim and Mary (who I bet have a dog and 3+ kids).

This reminds me of a school tax argument some years back:
Bill O'Reilly and some of his neo-con buddies overheard me talking and scolded me at July 4th party in Manhasset (Plandome Estates) asked "How many kids in highshool do you have, what church do you go to?" As I replied NONE and I havent gone to church since 1976. You see my mother was a Catholic school teacher in Broolyn St.Leonards (Bushwick) we be through and saw enough with the church, a bunch crazy fulla shit Hippocrits, mentally unstable perverts, crooks and drunks. The guy went ballistic "WELL--If you don’t want a wife & kids and don’t go to church why the hell did you move to Manhasset" "these taxes provide services or for US, as in people with kids and a sense of community" "not your kind, you don’t belong here, Who's this scantly clad young lady with you, the one with the tattoos, what kind of conservative republican are you. Please leave or move to the other side of the boat ramp all of you !!
-Get that, "not my kind"

It was a total case of discrimination, what I put up with for over 20 years. Zoe (a republican, musician and pro roller derby athlete BTW)is right. I am much happier moving back to Ridgewood. I'm even playing music again without some asshole calling the cops 8PM on a Saturday evening. For me (no kids) this trade-off works. The only thing bad is I cant have a car, no garage available till June, so I must store them on Long Island

I would rather fix motors and shoot fireworks with Jin, Kim and Juan then put up with $22,000 taxes for shit I dont need. In a way Bill O was right on that part, but then again were only $3500--That was till Democrats got seated in 1990
I believe a balanced quality of life no longer exists in New York, its more a matter of costs VS needs and likes.

Joe said...

I live on Long island over 26 years, Out of all those bands Twisted Sister, Blue Oyster Cult, Good rats, De La Soul and Public Enemy and countless others. Only 2 band member out of all of us still lives on Long Island. --Mark from Twisted Sister, likely because he has a NY State Trooper salary and Micky Marchello.
South and East Hampton has become a shithole of illegals, Southold is on it way why I sold my 2nd home in Mattituck (taking a $50K loss)

Why does everyone assume EVERBODY has kids ?
I just want to alive cheap, stay healthy and pay my health insurance. I'm no longer up at NBC/Universal making $5000 a week as an studio engineer and musician. I get no pension or SS BTW. My only income now is doing vintage audio restorations, handyman etc. I'm not draining my bank accounts paying no 11,000 school tax for some other guys 5 kids education's, football & Lacrosse uniforms, kitchen sinks included. I had a 2nd home in Mattituck I was getting wacked on School taxes as well as that town of Southold was quickly turning to shit. The local young people don't wanna work the farms and winery's, actually they don't want to work at all. Only get drunk, do drugs and break into houses. Now Mexican laborer's beggars and thieves everyplace you look. A walk in Greenport weekday night could get you stabbed or shot due to all the black and Hispanic gangs going at each other. Dumped that house fast taking a huge loss and I don't regret it one bit--Good riddance !

I have no problems living cheap, work at doing what I enjoy. That slavery $$ saved in taxes this year pays my health insurance, a nice 61 Les Paul reissue guitar and Yeasu FT-2000D radio. I love the nuttiness of living in the city. Where else can you walk to a bar, hardware store, morning coffee or comic relief of the Puerto Ricin neighbors chickens getting loose, jumping in the German guys yard who in turn runs out yelling in his underwear, chasing the chickens around his yard with a knife (failing miserably) to cut the heads off. --just hysterical. For me these are the things that keep me alive.
Like my grandfather said "If you want to kill me put me on Long Island or in the country"
That's my situation anyway, despite the city's problems I'm back home, where I came from after living on the moon for 26 years. For people with children's needs it be a totally different situation, they have it real bad.

Anonymous said...

I moved to CT from Queens, still work in the Bronx, have an hour commute in morning, hour and a half coming home and don't regret it one bit. Taxes are 4k, I have a 4 bed/3 bath house on 1/2 acre in good school district and everything I could need within 10 minutes. (House was 330k- not bad considering I was paying 2100 for a 2br in Glendale)

Joe said...

"Would you prefer the Fort Totten pool or Christopher Morley"

Huh?
Why, drive out to filthy Rockaway, some lido desert or WORSE Christopher Morley pay money to sit with 100,000 stranger's, screaming kids, view 75 year old women in bikinis with sun damaged leg skin drooping over knees & ankles. Then get arrested for a petty open can of beer, getting into a fight with some brats being idiuts? All things I personally experienced BTW

One has to be nuts, I wish it was but todays general public behavior is not that of Atlantic City, Brighton or Jones beach 1964. I have 2 nice beach chairs, garden sprinkler, mini bar shack 2 carry up Swiss army cots, laptop to work or Skype call with the best view of downtown Brooklyn and lower Manhattan and use of my own bathrooms. This on my own private paid for roof in Ridgewood.
Too add, a bodega on the corner where the Puerto Rican guy even stocks Rheingold, Pinchos and squeeze tube Fla-Vor-Ice.
What else does one need ??

Anonymous said...


"...And for those of you know-nothings of anything in Long Island that exists outside of Great Neck but are critical of it, please tell us, what schools in Queens beat these stats:..."

Those are excellent schools in Great Neck and as I said earlier, Long Island is a really nice place to live except that you won't have the same level of cultural offerings that you have in NYC (Queens firmly included!).

There are in fact two High Schools in Queens that beat your stats and they're on the very same list you posted from US News and World Report. Those high schools are:

-Townsend Harris High School (a screened, magnet High School)

-Queens High School for the Sciences at York College (a specialized test HS).

They're ranked 7th and 8th in NY State respectively, coming in after Lehman College HS (ranked #1) and just before Bronx HS of Science (#9 with 7 Nobe Prize winning Graduates).
In fact the top 10 are all in NYC.

As I stated, there are excellent educational choices in the city, you just have to know how to maneuver your way through the system so your child doesn't get caught up in some social-engineering-circle-jerk-social-justice-league-of-America-BS.

...if that doesn't work, you can always opt for the Catholic High Schools which is where much of the maligned and weary middle class wisely send their kids to avoid the aforementioned BS.
Seems to work out well for many of them.

Here's the complete HS list:
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-york/rankings

Anonymous said...

Townsend Harris is a good school, but it's controlled by city admissions officials who make it an affirmative action experiment. You can't get into it just because you live close. The specialized high schools are, well, just as you said. Not every qualified kid is going to have a great moment on that one day of the test. Not saying I dislike the test or that Townshend Harris isn't a great school with bright kids, just that these schools are not resources you can secure for your children by where you live in the city. Even the great PS 196 in Forest Hills is putting dozens kids on a waitlist because of overcrowding.

This tired point people keep pushing about the Long Island cultural barrenness (even if it were true, which it really isn't, compared to a lot of parts of Queens) is besides the point: you still live close enough to park your car at the LIRR, take a train in to enjoy what the city has to offer, and then leave the crap behind. And you can still afford to do it.

Yes, there are some unpleasant places in L.I. where you still pay relatively high taxes and have to deal with the crime, filth, and bad schools. I would hope it was obvious that wasn't the point of comparison to some people.

faster340 said...

I bought a house in Nassau county this past year. 60x100 property with 4bdroom 2 bath ranch. My taxes are $5500. My water bill is $32 for 3 mos. My car insurance is cheaper along with a few other things. I can park in front of my house and or get into my driveway anytime I want. My quality of life is substantially better. In comparison my old house in queens on 24x90 property small 3bdrm 1 bath house with taxes of $4500 and 3 mos water bill of $340 and a multitude of parking problems and higher insurance rates auto and homeowners along with other expenses is no bargain. Also my wife and I have saved over $4000 a year by not having to pay the Nyc personal income tax. Don't get me wrong I do love all the conveniences of living in nyc but I am thoroughly happy with the decision we made. Oh my wife works in Hoboken and gets to work 10-15 minutes faster than when we lived in queens and we are 15 miles further away. Another thing the house I bought probably would have cost me a million ++ in queens. I didn't pay nearly close to that and I'm in the oyster bay area not exactly a low rent district..

Anonymous said...

Statistics and numbers lie and dont tell the whole story.
Excellent schools in Great Neck if your Jewish, non Jews are treated like shit by the majority of what lives in Great Neck!! --An incorporated town of 80% Jewish liberal democrat voters, parking meters all sorts of regulations with the same thinking as deBlasio. They push multiculturalism and liberal doctrine's in Great Neck schools more then anywhere in New York, the city included.
--Same shit from different assholes, perhaps worse FUUUUG that, your kids will be treated like shit in the schools & neighbors if they aren't Jewish. I would keep looking. try Port Washington, Munsey Park, Plandome or Manhasset.

Anonymous said...

Northeast $8,500 taxpayer:
How old is your house? How big? What's your lot size?
My 40x100 1927 year old house....$5,200.
Maybe you're living too large in your present digs.

TommyR said...

Not really germane to QUEENS crap, but I suppose coverage of crap everywhere is somewhat relevant. What's with the RE dick-measuring here all of a sudden? The core takeaway from the OP is that the taxes situation out in the island and in the surrounding counties is pretty fucked up. But that's cuz those gov'ts know they've got a good honeypot so they'll dig deep...it's not as if rich WASP/Jewish types are in any rush to move INTO the City.

I've had it reiterated to me several times by a buddy that my ppty taxes are "too low" since his folks in Jersey pays "so much more".

Not my circus, not my monkeys... I certainly feel no desire to pay MORE b/c that's the shaft my suburban-ite fellows got. They also get nice schools, less crowding, and bigger homes so it shakes out fairly enough. They need to crack down on their own corruption issues (re: Mangano etc) and then put the pressure on to correct any equitable taxation issues...instead of using traffic tickets as a legitimate source of revenue to shore up the pitfalls bad policy has created, and whinging about City homeowners' (relatively) lower taxes.

Anonymous said...

"I bought a house in Nassau county this past year. 60x100 property with 4bdroom 2 bath ranch. My taxes are $5500"
Where near New Hyde Park, Roosevelt, Brentwood or Huntinton station ?

What is your total tax including school, police, fire, local town and Nassau county ?
If you bought this past and used a real estate agent (they never tell prospective buyers the school tax) you haven't received the fiscal years school tax bill yet.
And you better be sitting down when that wide envelope with the green ink it comes.
Schools are getting packed to the walls, need more classrooms and teachers due to the recent tsumami of students who's family's are fleeing the city. Towns have it so you can pay 1/2 every 6 months

Anonymous said...

Most of Oyster bay is another run down "multicultural" dump thanks to Tom Suozzi. The train runs LOUSY and through Jamaica and that's SUCKS. That's why its cheap. That's a hike from the parkways and graveyard at night, not a fun place.

faster340 said...

Neither anonymous. It's just me and my wife in a nice neighborhood in Oyster Bay...

faster340 said...

Yeah ok. I'll keep enjoying my move. I meant oyster bay township which includes a lot of towns within in it which stretch from the north shore to the south shore.

Anonymous said...

As interest and tax differentials rise, while immigration drops, watch NYC real estate drop to 1977 levels. Get ready to buy it all up for pennies in a few years just like Detroit.