40 Houses for $400,000

A nice little photo gallery on Newsday’s site. Forty homes all around Long Island priced at $400,00

More on the hoax robbery in Babylon

Video from WCBS, featuring some interviews with a few Babylonians about all the commotion. Cesar Ramirez should have found some other way to pay his mortgage.

Optimum Wi-Fi, as the service is called, is now available to customers in Nassau County and parts of Suffolk County Long Island. The network, which is expected to be completed in less than two years, will be available for free to Cablevision’s 2.4 million Internet service customers.

Most of the coverage areas are in Nassau, but some areas in Suffolk are included, including the Babylon train station and most of the downtown Babylon Village.

The full coverage map and instructions on how to use the service can be found here. You need to be an Optimum Online subscriber to use it. It’s free if you are, but not available at all if you’re not.

I’m going to give it a try this weekend and let you know how it works.

• We went to three open houses on Sunday. Nothing really that we’d think about buying, but there’s always something to learn. I’ve been trying to convince my wife to do the write up, since she’s a much better writer than I am, but either way, I should have a write up for them soon.
• Another open house on Thursday. This one has some potential.
• My friend Trevor has been en fuego with his blog posting, if you’re interested in the mortgage or real estate biz, you should really check him out. I’m going to redo his site a bit in the next week or two, once I get a little free time.
• At the Thursday open house I ran Martin Hepworth from Netter who said he read my blog and gave me some props.
• There’s been some people asking me if I could do some web site work for them.  I’m not actively soliciting for new clients right now, what with the house hunting and the baby on the way, but I’m always open to talk, especially if you’re local or close to Babylon. If you’re interested, drop me a line at info (at) homeinbabylon.com
• My wife is 36 weeks along now. We just did the 36 week ultrasound and all looks good. I can’t wait to meet my new, baby daughter.
• Torta Fina, the new bakery on Deer Park Ave is now open. I stopped by today for a cappuccino and some cookies. It’s a nice place, but I’ll miss the bran muffins from Wilhelms.
• I took some pictures at Hawley’s Lake Park. I’m planning to post them up soon.

Lastly, if you’re reading this blog, please feel free to leave a comment. Click on the Comments link under this post and let me know what you think or just say hi.

The driver for a Farmingdale delivery company had just dropped off merchandise at a store and received a cash payment when he pulled his 20-foot box truck over on Deer Park Ave. shortly before 2 p.m., Suffolk police said.

The driver was in the back of the truck and preparing to drop the money in a rear safe when someone approached from behind, stuck a blunt object in his back, and demanded the cash, according to Det. Sgt. Robert Doyle of the Major Cases Unit.

The business isn’t identified in the story. Apparently the driver was robbed of the money and then locked in the back of the truck.

[Update: 10:33 PM]

More from Newsday

A delivery driver’s story of being robbed at gunpoint and locked in his truck Tuesday soon fell apart, Suffolk police said, after he admitted he stole the cash and shut himself in to help hide the crime

Cesar Ramirez, 35, was charged with grand larceny and making a false report late Tuesday after being interviewed at police headquarters in Yaphank.

The police were immediately suspicious of the driver’s story, seeing as how it happened in broad daylight on a busy street and there were no witnesses.

Every time I read something like this, it makes me think back to the time I spent on grand jury duty. Seeing the parade of doofuses and incompetents who were accused of various crimes made me realize that there just aren’t many criminal masterminds out there. Most people who break the law are complete idiots.

Still, there’s something else in this story that relates to the subject of this blog.

Ramirez told detectives he stole the money because he was three months behind on his mortgage payments,

“We’re playing three night games there this year and we’re very excited about it,” coach Rick Punzone said of the permanent fixtures. His school had played the occasional Friday night game in the past using portable lights, but now can make that a regular portion of future schedules.

Babylon should again be in the spotlight in Suffolk Division IV this season. They will be led by returning All-County star Bryan Schweitzer, a running back/middle linebacker, and 270-pound fullback/defensive tackle Sean Melow (above in orange shorts, shedding a blocker during drills on Wednesday). Quarterback/defensive back Greg Griffo and wide receiver/defensive back Alex Grandal also are veterans.

The missus and I didn’t get to see inside of any of these places. Mostly because none of them were really on our radar for various reason. We were debating about asking to see 71 Mason, given its price and its location in the Presidential Section, but we drove by it a few times to snak a peek and I really didn’t like the look of the place.

Let me know if you like the pictures. I’m inlining them directly from MLSLI, not copying them.

13 Washington St

• MLS# 2080244 - Zillow Page
• Sold: $535,000 - 8/14/2008
• Prior Sales: 02/02/1999 - $185,000
• 3 bedrooms - 1.5 bath - Colonial
• Taxes: $8,570 - Village Taxes: $774

A nice, updated colonial in the Presidential section.

71 Mason Ave

• MLS# 1995941 - Zillow Page
• Sold: $350,000 - 8/14/2008
• Prior Sales: 11/29/2005 - $435,000
• 3 bedrooms - 1 bath - Colonial(?)
• Taxes: $6,636 - Village Taxes: $500

Like they say on Flipper Nation, “The ugliest girl on the block, you make her pretty” and this house certainly qualifies.

We saw this one on MLS last year some time in the spring. I figured out which house it was based on the MLS map and we drove by it a few times. The impression we got from the outside wasn’t a good one. There were never any pictures of the inside of the place. I assumed, based on the 2005 sale and the condition of the house that it was a foreclosure or pre-foreclosure.

The house was bought in 2005 for $435,000 listed at $420,000 and eventually sold for $350,000. That was a lot of money somebody lost in a very short period of time.

54 Paumanake Ave

• MLS# 2034516 - Zillow Page
• Sold: $490,000 - 8/8/2008
• Prior Sales: 11/09/2006 - $460,000
• 3 bedrooms - 1.5 bath - Colonial
• Taxes: $5,733 - Village Taxes: $400

A bit of an anomaly here, selling for $30K more than its 2006 sale price. I’m thinking that there were some extensive upgrades done and that the owners lost some money there, but maybe they just got lucky.

49 Cadman Ave

• MLS# 2078866 - Zillow Page
• Sold: $390,000 - 8/8/2008
• Prior Sales: None Listed
• 3 bedrooms - 2 bath - Split
• Taxes: $10,521 - Village Taxes: $842

The last ask for this was $429,000. Looking at the MLS listing and the odd Zillow page, I’m guessing that this is, or at least was, an illegal two family. A mention of two stoves and two fridges is pretty much a dead givaway.

I’m a little dissapointed that I never got in this one.l I don’t think it was on MLS very long. I don’t even remember seeing it listed.

91 Little East Neck Rd

• MLS# 2075323 - Zillow Page
• Sold: $759,000 - Sold Date: 8/1/2008
• Prior Sales: None Listed
• 4 bedrooms - 3.5 bath - Colonial
• Taxes: $15,228 - Village Taxes: $1,633

I’m including this one just for completeness sake. Obviously this one would never even be on out radar.

The last ask for this was $790,000. This house is south of Montauk Ave, although not waterfront or waterview. It’s nice looking, modest 13 room mansion.

38 Tappan Ave

• MLS# 2066353 - Zillow Page
• Sold: $416,000 - 8/15/2008
• Prior Sales: None Listed
• 4 bedrooms - 2 bath - Exp Ranch/High Ranch
• Taxes: $8,269 - Village Taxes: $634

Babylon Village ammenities but the W. Babylon school district. These houses are usually a good deal, but we’re pretty set on the Babylon School District if we can swing it.

Trev’s site was down for a while due to a hacking attack from spam bots. I cleaned up the mess for him and now he’s back to posting, hopefully on a regular basis.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, pre-season tickets have the same face value as regular season tickets. A seat that costs $85 for a chilly December game with serious playoff implications costs te same exact $85 for a meaningless August game with scrub players taking half the snaps. Part of the “tax” paid by Giants season ticket holders is that they must buy tickets to all 10 home games, the 8 regular season games and the 2 meaningless pre-season games.

There are always tons of unwanted pre-season tickets floating around. If you read the threads on the Corner Forum, you can pick up pre-season tix for 20 or 30 dollars or less. That’s the market. There are lots of these things available and very few buyers. As I said, I thought about going, but the prospect of spending Tuesday at work drinking coffee and trying to keep my eyes open because I spent the night at an exhibition game didn’t really appeal to me.

Still, even with the commonly known state of the market, there are still people who post threads looking to get face value or slightly less for their pre-season tickets. They disregard all the available data and price the tickets based on what they paid for them or what they feel their worth. They’re just not paying attention.

Sometimes, when I look at homes on MLS, it’s like the same people who are trying to move their pre-season tickets for face value. They just aren’t paying attention. They haven’t looked at the data. They want to get what they feel their property is worth. But they won’t

Homes in Babylon

• Total: 97
• Babylon School District: 62
• BSD and Under 600K: 35
• Condos/Coops:12

97 Homes total is a low water mark for sure. I don’t remember the last time that there were that few listings for Babylon. I’m wondering if this is some kind of late season sell off.

That new construction down at the end of Park, near 109, has dropped in price. It’s now in a range of $519K-$529K, down from $549K.

There’s a lot of condos in the listings these days. Four in Village Commons and four in Whaler’s Cove. Last year I was very interested in Village Commons and I thought that their relative scarcity on MLS was due to their high desirability. That seems to be not the case anymore.

[edit]

I changed the images to a more manageable, 600 pixel size. I had uploaded the full-size pictures from my digital camera thinking WordPress would re-size them for me, but it apparently didn’t