To Sell Or Not To Sell - That is the Long Island Real Estate Question

BY MRS. LONG ISLAND

Two months ago my sister announced that she was putting her house up for sale on Long Island and looking for a new home. I thought she was crazy. She bought her house about three years ago. The median price of an average home on Long Island, New York today is nearing the 1/2 million dollar mark, so how could she afford it?

Well, it turns out that with the increased value of her existing home she built up enough equity to put down a sizable down payment on a new home. Besides that, she was one of the smart ones and managed to pay a few dollars more every month towards her mortgage payment, so she was able to reduce her original mortgage loan amount considerably.

When you sign for your mortgage the bankers usually offer that tid-bit of good intentioned advice as a way to pay off your mortgage faster and save a few dollars on the astronomical interest fees you pay on the original loan amount. Great idea, but we all don't live in a perfect world, especially on Long Island, so I am sure you get the picture.

We bought our home five years ago. We had the property evaluated two years ago, thinking that we might be able to do a similar trade up. It just did not seem feasible at the time. Now, two years later the Long Island real estate market is making some unusual shifts.

Is anyone paying attention to the Long Island real esate market lately, besides me and the 27,000 real estate brokers? In the past month or so it has become a buyers market. What? How did that happen, you ask?

Well, most of us agreed a long time ago that Long Island, NY is one of the most expensive places to live in the country. Many people that live here find it difficult to make ends meet. Quite a few have packed up and moved on to more affordable places to live. North Carolina seems to be the most popular relocation spot for displaced Long Islanders. So there are lots and lots of houses for sale and not enough buyers to balance out the market, so this is starting to drive the prices down creating opportunities for buyers.

Homes that would have sold like hot cakes to the highest bidder a few years back, are still on the market. The friends and families of the ones that already ventured out of state are hearing tales of real estate envy. Yearly property taxes comparable to a month's worth on Long Island. New homes for the price of a fixer-upper on Long Island. So, there may be a lot more homeowners caving into the peer pressure and putting their homes on the market.

To sell or not to sell - that is the Long Island Real Estate question. Following the philosphy of "Believe none of what you hear, some of what you read and half of what you see", we have no plans of packing our bags and moving out of state, just yet.

We did put our house on the market and started looking at houses for sale on Long Island. A home a little closer to Mom and the rest of the family in Nassau County would be ideal and make things a bit easier with raising the kids.

We dumped a ton of money into our house to make it more comfortable for us, so we do not have to move. We will have to see how the real estate market on Long Island pans out in the next few months. If we can sell our house for the right price and find a comparable house that fits within our budget, the magic eight ball says, "A move is in your future."

Thanks for reading my rantings.