Author: Brett

Fueled by sensible home prices and city living (albeit, the outer boros), we returned to Bayside, Queens for another look.

On this trip, we took in two open houses: both condos in Northern Bayside. The first was a 3BR/2BTH in The Kennedy Street Quad complex on Corporal Kennedy Street. While our daughter slept in the car and Andrew watched our son stare at passing cars and shout, “Car! Car!” like some miniature carnival barker, I raced in to take a peek. The building itself was nothing special: your typical 1950s brick fare. Still, as I walked in, the friendly super warned me to be careful not to slip on the wet floor.

This spacious unit was empty, freshly renovated, and awaiting new appliances. At $409K, it seemed like a real steal. Located on the 1st floor, it was bright and felt more like a ranch house than an apartment. Then I noticed the lack of a washer and dryer and remembered that it was just an apartment unit. The agent, clearly shocked that anyone was attending this open house, asked me to sign in, then realized that she didn’t have a pen (memo to self: bring writing implement to OH!). She did have a couple of flyers on hand and I almost barfed when I saw the monthly maintenance fee: $1392.36. I don’t even care if an indoor parking spot is included (at an additional $45.90/mo.) It was a nice apartment, but this was no luxury building, mind you. There was no actual doorman or concierge present. After he saw the maintenance fee, Andrew did not even bother going in.

Next, we walked across the street to an Open House in the Bayside Condo Townhouses. This 3 BR/1.5 BA triplex condo in a gated community had a full finished basement with laundry (yay!), a Jacuzzi tub in the full bath and a fairly updated kitchen. The price was also reasonable: $629K for what really was like an attached townhouse plus the maintenance fee of $327.94 (and don’t forget your annual taxes of $2600). The unit was nice and felt roomy, yet I was distracted by the abundance of cat toys and yes, cat puke caked on the rug upstairs. I hate to sound catty (oh, yes I did!), but if you were this agent, wouldn’t you just grab a paper towel and scrub a bit? I bet you even cat lovers (and cat lovers feel free to chime in) are not fans of the cat puke. Anyway, yet more evidence that even in this shitty market, some sellers continue to think that their houses will sell themselves. Even without the cat puke, the backyard faced the Clearview Expressway. But if you like white noise and won’t be using the backyard, then maybe this is the place for you. Otherwise, if you are looking for a townhouse, we did see some attached houses in the area as well, like this one close to the train. At least you can avoid the maintenance fees. Also, we weren’t sure why the area was gated. Who were they trying to keep out, the other middle-class commuter-folks paying “luxury-style” prices across the street? Unfortunately, both properties are situated too far north to walk to the LIRR, but the express bus stops right outside, and shopping at The Bay Terrace is also a short walk away.

With both kiddies now awake, we headed further south to meet an agent and to see some detached single-family houses.

Author: Brett

Still stinging from our near-miss on a 3-bedroom Colonial in Port Washington, NY, we decided to switch gears and started looking somewhere we had always intended to check out, but had never quite gotten to: Bayside, Queens.

Bayside is sandwiched between the Clearview and the Cross Island Expressways and is cut in half by Northern Boulevard. It has a LIRR train stop which is about a 30 minute trip. Bayside has a suburban feel with the added bonus of city buses, parks, and low property taxes. The city public schools are exceptional, and as a former NYC middle-school teacher, this is not a phrase you will ever hear me bandy about. The neighborhood elementary schools, in fact, are so high-performing that they were exempt from the Dept. of Ed’s Orwellian standardized curriculum—a very good thing (art, music and recess, anyone?)

Ok, so there could be less cars and chain restaurants, but there are still oodles of affordable houses within walking distance to the train. It’s no wonder that “Time Out New York Kids” magazine touted Bayside last month as being one of the city’s best new neighborhoods for raising a family.

We have made two trips to Bayside so far—once on our own, and the other with an agent. On the first trip, we saw a roomy Center Hall Colonial for $768K on 205th St. The house had many great features—a sunny eat-in kitchen and outside patio, a finished attic bedroom, and 2 1/2 baths, along with a finished basement. The catch, of course, was that nothing had been updated in at least 15 years and it needed more work than we could possibly afford at that price. A great opportunity—for someone, but not us. Still, the same house would have listed for around $825 in Madison, here in Brooklyn.

Next, we drove to 213th St to see a newly gut-renovated Tudor in Bayside Hills, a leafy, section marked by stone pillars and green malls. This diminutive Tudor for $725 (price has now been lowered to $715k since we saw it last month!) had 3 tiny bedrooms, a barely-there kitchen with breakfast bar overlooking the dining room (dining square foot?) and a postage-sized backyard. What really made it a loser, however, was the basement. You could actually see the raw seams of the main floor as you descended to the “unfinished” basement. There, in one corner, someone had laid the tile for a second bathroom and had attached the door. So, this must have been what the listing meant when they said that there were 2 full bathrooms! Apparently not, since when we asked the listing agent, he replied that this was it for the bathroom—there would be no further work done on it. And I thought that after house-hunting for 3 years that I had seen it all….

After attending the open houses, we had lunch at Pizzeria Uno’s on Bell Boulevard, one of the main shopping streets, and also where the train station is located (at 41st ave). Normally, we wouldn’t bother with a chain, but since we had the kids along, we needed something family-friendly. We decided on our next trip that we would focus on looking at houses north of Northern Boulevard, to make it easier and safer to walk to the train and to shops. We felt like we had a better sense of home prices in Bayside and we agreed that homes were definitely more affordable here than in Brooklyn.

The question remained: Would we find what we were looking for?