By CHRIS CHURCHILL, Business writer First published: Sunday, August 24, 2008
On a quiet Schenectady side street, on a block of shipshape homes and postage-stamp yards, sits a two-story house owned by John Segatto.
It has three bedrooms, a full bathroom, central air, shiny hardwood floors, a carport, a slight front porch and a backyard pocket of green where Segatto, a retired tile layer, grows tomatoes.
The house is for sale. The price: $97,500.
That's right -- a move-in ready home for under $100,000.
Today, after a decade-long climb in home prices that has left many wannabe first-time buyers sitting on the sidelines, such houses are not common in the Capital Region. Yet neither are they especially rare.
For the patient home buyer, and for the person who isn't persnickety about minor flaws -- call them "character" -- there are bargains to be had, comfortable homes priced below $100,000 that a family could occupy tomorrow, without rehab work and without a mortgage that would stagger a Rockefeller.
A few caveats: You won't find such homes in the sought-after suburbs. Not in Bethlehem, or Niskayuna, certainly, and probably not in Colonie. All but the most rural parts of Saratoga County are out, too.
And if you tour many of these homes priced under $100,000, you will eventually walk through at least one grimly depressing dive, no matter how pretty the place looked online. Most of the houses, too, are smaller than is now typical; your kids might have to share a bedroom.
And while many are in reasonably safe neighborhoods, some might be too near tough streets for the timid.
Segatto's home on Pearl Street, for example, is in Mont Pleasant, a city neighborhood with many tidy blocks, but also with more than its share of disheartening streets of sagging roofs and overgrown lots.
Schenectady, though, is the region's treasure trove of under $100,000 homes. That might not be a good sign for the city's overall economic health, but it's an opportunity for lower-income and first-time home buyers.
Said Lou Suriano, owner of Integrity Realty and the agent handling Segatto's home, "In the city proper, you get much more for your money -- if you can handle the tax burden."
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August 25, 2008, 4:58am
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Said Lou Suriano, owner of Integrity Realty and the agent handling Segatto's home, "In the city proper, you get much more for your money -- if you can handle the tax burden."
Why do you think people are moving out in the first place??
Most home buyers would prefer to purchase a higher priced home with lower taxes than a lower priced home with high taxes because the principle and interest portion of their mortgage loan payments will remain stable (for a fixed rate loan). Taxes are certain to increase year over year. Each percentage of increase in the property taxes adversely impacts a property owner greater where the tax bill is higher to begin with.
IF our elected "leaders" are to right the ship in Schenectady, they must work to bring property taxes down substantially. Otherwise, people will elect to live in surrounding counties where they can buy more house for the same money.
It's well beyond the taxes.......it's the integrity challenged neighbors in certain areas......it's a big price to pay to 'get rid of those integrity challeged folks taggers, stabbers,shooters,gangs, theives etc......organized crime is much more civil----brokers, accountants, gamblers etc.........but everyone pays well over $100,000 to be their neighbors.....
Schenectady needs General Honore who got Louisiana organized after Katrina........there's only so much $$ a government can toss around as promises for votes before they totally dumb down the population into the 'reality' of 'I cant do anything without the government giving it to me'.........
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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