<p>Wall Street journal article today entitled " Anxiety High- moving for Schools" Front page- very interesting</p>
<p>songman, thanks for mentioning the article.</p>
<p>I don’t get the extreme thinking of some people.</p>
<p>How’s your son liking college?</p>
<p>Well, you can add me to the list. Very seriously considering leaving this very high cost area. We love our friends and neighbors, but I told me wife if we stick around another 5 years most of our friends will likely move away, leaving us! We haven’t discussed it openly around our son because he has predicated his college search on being within driving distance from home. I am glad we were able to stay here and provide a stable environment for our kids from K thru HS, but now it is just too expensive to stay here. It’s not even about paying for college. We have enough money put aside to cover most college costs. We just can’t afford to stay HERE!!</p>
<p>This is a great thread. We live in a house that is MUCH to big for two people. We aren’t moving yet because we are pretty sure DS will be joining us next year (after college graduation). Still…DH and I have been talking about “where next”. Once both kids are finished with college AND have their own means of support and places to live, I will likely retire. DH would look for a job in a different part of the country where the weather is somewhat milder and the cost of living is less. Also…we would definitely get a house with the master bedroom on the main floor…at the very least. At some point, we won’t want to (or probably be able to) deal with snow removal, and the maintenance of our large property. And we will also look at taxes. We’re in New England with incredibly high property values AND high taxes too. We’ll see what really happens, but right now the area that is appealing to us is the greater Greensboro area. It seems to be growing and hopping.</p>
<p>The expensive areas in the metro NY and Boston areas are going to be ghost towns in the future. Who can afford to live here? I can’t imagine what will happen demographically in the future, if this trend continues. These once thriving areas…losing long time residents at an alarming rate…</p>
<p>I moved to NNJ from NYC so that my kids could go to school here in town. The schools are funded through property taxes. I can handle the property taxes while I am working and earning an income. However, I am not so sure if I can continue or would even want to continue to pay these property taxes after the kids are done with hgih school. I expect that my property taxes will increase another 8k - 10k in 10 years. I also expect my corporate career will be done (older age/higher pay). I will continue to work but at a much lower paying job than what I am used to earn working in NYC. (Home Depot here I come…) Bottomline, I dont know how I will be able to or even want to continue to live NNJ. I would like to keep the house for the kids but I am not sure that they would even want to live there or even subject them to expectations of living in NNJ. I am mentally preparing for the possibility of selling the house and moving back to NYC.</p>
<p>I’ve stopped buying things because most of my “disposable” income goes for car repairs, house repairs, heating, electricity, cable TV, cell phones, insurance (health, car, home). And savings. Our house is way too big and costs way too much to keep after I stop working.</p>
<p>So if everybody moves from the expensive areas to the cheap areas, will the cheap areas become expensive?</p>
<p>dstark, this is what is happening, but not a lightening speed. For example, I know someone who relocated south 15 years ago and paid about 250,000 for a home that would cost 750,000 in my community. Now I know someone else moving within 1.5 hours of that area in the south. These people are paying 430,000 for a home that is similar. They will be selling a more expensive home in NY, and will be paying much less in property taxes. The primary wage earner was able to transfer to the south and keep the same income as in NY.</p>
<p>Allmusic, I think there will always be customers for NYC suburbs. They will just be the wealthy. There are homes less than 20 miles from me that sell for over 5 million dollars. People are living in them.</p>
<p>Oh, I know that NEM. Our prices have dropped, but a ranch still costs 3/4 of a milion, and a nice spanking new colonial is closer to $1.5-2M. Houses sit longer on the market, but they too sell…eventually. </p>
<p>We don’t have as many hedge fund managers as you do in NY, so fewer five mil homes. 
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<p>But the people being squeezed out are the elderly and the middle class. </p>
<p>And we pay a salary in property taxes. I am always amazed that people in other areas of the country have RE taxes of hundreds of dollars not five digit thousands…</p>
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<p>Absolutely, this is what seems to be going is going on around me. </p>
<p>I attended a town hall meeting where an elderly citizen was inquiring whether her zoning would allow for her to rent out bedrooms to offset her expenses, and of course they told her that she could not do this.</p>