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I appreciate the mature response. I consider my wife and I fortunate because although I set us wanting to stay under a budget of 999k and ideally 950k, this is quite below what we can actually afford/got approved for. I just don’t want us to be house poor. I just started working three years ago (I am a physician and my wife is a nurse) so I have saved up enough to have a sizable down payment of up to 25-30% but want to definitely keep some funds liquid/have student loans looming. Don’t want to blow all our cash on the home and have nothing left to renovate and have no safety net.
However the market we are learning is much worse than we thought and I already started working at a hospital around Huntington in preparation for our move but the commute from the city to Huntington is killing me (trying to move within the next 6months). So now I am trying to find a backup plan to our original idea of only searching in Huntington. We are seeing clear now that we will just have to look elsewhere like northport or south Huntington/hunt station or blow more of our cash to go over 1mill. Even green lawn has no decent houses for sale under a million.
I think that your downpayment is probably what's holding you back here. I'm not sure what your student loans are looking like but banks are getting increasingly jittery especially with regard to jumbo loans. The vast majority of sellers are being told not to risk it even with higher offers if they also have an all cash offer.
To be honest, and this is just my opinion, in your case it almost makes sense to not buy at this time. You and your wife's purchasing power will undoubtedly greatly increase in 5-10 years and you'll have a lot more options.
If I were you, I'd just rent and save/pay down student debt (especially since you have no kids). Home prices aren't going much higher from here on out for the foreseeable future and there's a very good chance that rates will be lower in 2-3 years.
There are 17 rentals currently in Huntington. I think it just makes way more sense for you to rent in your current position. Over the lifetime of your career, $100K (at the very most) in "lost" equity vs. buying a home now will be chump change.
I think that your downpayment is probably what's holding you back here. I'm not sure what your student loans are looking like but banks are getting increasingly jittery especially with regard to jumbo loans. The vast majority of sellers are being told not to risk it even with higher offers if they also have an all cash offer.
To be honest, and this is just my opinion, in your case it almost makes sense to not buy at this time. You and your wife's purchasing power will undoubtedly greatly increase in 5-10 years and you'll have a lot more options.
If I were you, I'd just rent and save/pay down student debt (especially since you have no kids). Home prices aren't going much higher from here on out for the foreseeable future and there's a very good chance that rates will be lower in 2-3 years.
There are 17 rentals currently in Huntington. I think it just makes way more sense for you to rent in your current position. Over the lifetime of your career, $100K (at the very most) in "lost" equity vs. buying a home now will be chump change.
I truly appreciate the advice. Another reason we were trying to stick to under a mill is to avoid being pushed into a jumbo loan and mansion tax. We’ve moved 3 times in the past 5 years due to my residency and Covid disaster so we were really trying to settle down with a home this year but then reality really set in when we started looking. We are going to review our options with our lender and agent and see if we just have to suck it up and rent for a couple years and then move again. Hopefully the market will improve and we can come back with 50%+ down and more cash at hand or we get lucky soon/can find another town we can be happy with.
Thank you so so much
Last edited by firstimelibuyer; 08-19-2023 at 08:55 PM..
not sure you would be interested, but many homes at 700k-800k in Commack/East Northport area. Commack SD is highly rated (parts of EN go to Commack SD) and you're fifteen minutes from Huntington.
Many nice residental neighborhoods in the area.
You may want to check that out
not sure you would be interested, but many homes at 700k-800k in Commack/East Northport area. Commack SD is highly rated (parts of EN go to Commack SD) and you're fifteen minutes from Huntington.
Many nice residental neighborhoods in the area.
You may want to check that out
Thank you for the rec, we are likely going to look into ENorthport and commack next.
I think that your downpayment is probably what's holding you back here. I'm not sure what your student loans are looking like but banks are getting increasingly jittery especially with regard to jumbo loans. The vast majority of sellers are being told not to risk it even with higher offers if they also have an all cash offer.
To be honest, and this is just my opinion, in your case it almost makes sense to not buy at this time. You and your wife's purchasing power will undoubtedly greatly increase in 5-10 years and you'll have a lot more options.
If I were you, I'd just rent and save/pay down student debt (especially since you have no kids). Home prices aren't going much higher from here on out for the foreseeable future and there's a very good chance that rates will be lower in 2-3 years.
There are 17 rentals currently in Huntington. I think it just makes way more sense for you to rent in your current position. Over the lifetime of your career, $100K (at the very most) in "lost" equity vs. buying a home now will be chump change.
We sold our house to a doctor ... I had concerns but our realtor told me - doctors can always get a loan because they can always get a job. That's probably more true now than ever.
If you work in/near Huntington then going further east seems the ideal move, eventually you figure out which back roads to take to mitigate the commute. Kings Park is nice too.
I guess in your opinion nothing changes in 50 years
In most cases if an area was a ghetto 40 years ago, it's probably worse now. I doubt that has changed much over the years. I still have family that live in Dix Hills, Cold Spring Harbor and Commack and they tell me about such things.
In most cases if an area was a ghetto 40 years ago, it's probably worse now. I doubt that has changed much over the years. I still have family that live in Dix Hills, Cold Spring Harbor and Commack and they tell me about such things.
I live in Huntington less than a mile from the center of town. It is beautiful. Did you look at the areas surrounding it such as Northport (has a great little town) as well as Cold Spring Harbor. Someone had mentioned Greenlawn as well. If you drive east through town on Main Street and cross over Park Avenue it will change to East Main Street. Stay on that and you will see some lovely areas. Feel free to pm with any questions. If I had a million dollars to spend I would not be in Huntington Station or in Maplewood sections. Just my opinion though.
I live in Huntington less than a mile from the center of town. It is beautiful. Did you look at the areas surrounding it such as Northport (has a great little town) as well as Cold Spring Harbor. Someone had mentioned Greenlawn as well. If you drive east through town on Main Street and cross over Park Avenue it will change to East Main Street. Stay on that and you will see some lovely areas. Feel free to pm with any questions. If I had a million dollars to spend I would not be in Huntington Station or in Maplewood sections. Just my opinion though.
Thank you so much for your rec!
We did end up looking further east but really wanted to stick closer to the LIRR for my wife’s job and commute into the city. Also wanted easier highway access than being so far north from the parkway. Northport is indeed really pretty and we would love to live there, but it’s gotten terribly expensive, as with all of CSH.
Due to our circumstances we decided to pursue a home in Maplewood in hunt station that meets all our needs, at least for now. The area seems ok as well after driving around it at many times if the day, but I guess we will find out.
We did end up looking further east but really wanted to stick closer to the LIRR for my wife’s job and commute into the city. Also wanted easier highway access than being so far north from the parkway. Northport is indeed really pretty and we would love to live there, but it’s gotten terribly expensive, as with all of CSH.
Due to our circumstances we decided to pursue a home in Maplewood in hunt station that meets all our needs, at least for now. The area seems ok as well after driving around it at many times if the day, but I guess we will find out.
Thank you all so much for your help. I didn’t realize my post would be such a polarizing subject.
Beautiful home! Hope it works out for you
It's close enough to Park Avenue to get to highways, and for the LIRR, take Maplewood to Lenox and go North, past Pulaski Rd - you'll end by the South side parking lot! If your wife takes an early train, the parking garage is great, especially in inclement weather. Just get an annual parking permit, and you'll be all set.
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