Sadly, this seems to be not the case. According to Newsday, a representative for the daringly coiffed Ms. Polizzi denied the rumor.

Realtor Mary Adams says she believes that high school students circulated the story about the hard-partying reality TV star, whose signature hair style is “The Poof.” “Everybody’s kind of upset about the whole thing,” says Adams of Century 21 American Homes. “Not that you’d want to say you cannot live here, but come on.”

So there you have it, fellow Babylonians and avid Googlers, Jersey Shore is not coming to the South Shore. Now we must all go on with our humdrum lives.

On the other hand, if you’re suffering from a celebrity jones, you may still be able to catch Gordan Ramsey filming at The Classic American restaurant in West Babylon.

Free firewood! Come with your chainsaw and take as much as you like!

Saturday night, three of the four big trees on the back, left corner of my property blew down in the hellacious Nor’easter.

We didn’t notice it until the morning. In fact, I had to work on Sunday and I didn’t learn about it until Debra called me. She woke up that morning, looked out the window and had a bit of a freakout seeing giant trees lying across our backyard.

I can’t complain too much. The trees fell almost straight across the fence line and didn’t land on anything important. I know that some fellow Babylonians had trees fall on or into their house. The only real damage from this little incident was to my back neighbor’s fence, which got bent up from the tree roots.

I’m not quite sure what to do at this point. As you might expect, local tree guys are going to be pretty busy for the next few weeks and I’m not real confident in my ability to handle a chainsaw sell enough to slice up a three 75 foot trees. Plus the one remaining tree needs to come down as well.

There’s a lot of furious activity now. I assume it’s because people are trying to slip in under the Nov 30th deadline and get that eight grand from Uncle Sugar.

Most of the homes we saw had little or no interest for us, so I’m planning to write about those homes sometime soon. Right now, I’m also working on the July Sold Homes post. There were ten homes listed as being sold in July 2009 in Babylon Village, so it’s going to be a long post. I should be able to push it out this weekend.

This is an open discussion thread, so I invite any and all readers to pipe up and say something. Feel free to leave a comment and ask a question, make an observation, tell us what you’re up to or just introduce yourself and say hi.

I’m very interested in hearing fellow home shoppers, especially their impressions of any open houses that they’ve seen, but I’d also like to hear from any sellers and their experiences and observations.

I’m posting this “sticky”, which means that it will stay at the top of the page over the weekend even if I post new stuff afterward. If you’re accustomed to stopping by and glancing at the top of the page to see if there’s new stuff, scroll on down a bit before you click away.

Enojy your weekend, everyone. Happy hunting.

Homes in Babylon

We seemed to be hovering in the low to mid 90′s for total home in Babylon over the summer, but now the inventory is creeping up. 106 is as I as I’ve seen it in some time, maybe since last summer.

Unfortunately, the pickings are pretty slim at the lower end of the market. We’ve edged up our max price a bit to try and tried to look at a few more homes, but not much really appeals to us.

My feeling is that there’s a lot of “shadow inventory”, sellers waiting in the wings for a real estate recovery. My subjective observation is that there seems to be a higher percentage of estate sales, retirement sales and divorce sales in the mix than there was a couple years back. The recently purchased, nicely renovated homes on MLS have — to a certain extent — given way to the “charming” houses that have kitchens and baths from the Age of Aquarius and need “a little TLC”. In other words, the people who are selling now are the people who need to sell. Those who think they can hang on are hoping to ride out the bad real estate market.

Unfortunately, I’m looking to buy now…right now…and the possibility of better homes being available at lower prices some time next year isn’t helping me out here. For those of you who are still on the sidelines waiting, this coming spring could bring some serious deals.

A 26-foot-long dying shark washed ashore Tuesday on a Long Island beach, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation said.

The male basking shark, which weighed an estimated 5,000 pounds and was measured at 26 feet, 6 inches, died shortly after authorities arrived on the scene, according to marine educator Tracy Marcus of the Cornell Cooperative Extension.

How many miles is it to Babylon?–
Threescore miles and ten.

Can I get there by candle-light?–
Yes, and back again.

If your heels are nimble and light,
You may get there by candle-light

From Project Gutenberg’s The Real Mother Goose

Trying to jolt a lethargic housing market, the Town of Babylon announced yesterday it will give middle-income families a $15,000 down payment match toward the purchase of their first home.

Those who earn 81 to 120 percent of the area’s median income will qualify for the program. For example, a single buyer can make up to $81,550 and a family of four up to $116,500, Supervisor Steve Bellone said. The home must be purchased within the town, and while the program is open to all of Long Island, priority will be given to those who are already town residents.

Props to commenter FanofBabylonVillage for pointing this out, although I did actually see it first yesterday on My Babylon Village.

Of course, as my wife points out, we don’t qualify as “middle income” in Babylon Town. We’re probably well below the median in the Village proper, but townwide we just make too damn much money.

Tom McGiveron has a new post up on foreclosure statistics in Nassau and Suffolk from RealtyTrac. RealtyTrac doesn’t have the best reputation for accuracy, but even still there’s bad new all around Suffolk county.

The big shock, 34 homes in foreclosure right here in Babylon. That may not seem like a lot. Looking at the numbers, there are 176 homes in foreclosure in Tom’s backyard of Deer Park.

But Babylon isn’t Deer Park. Not only is it smaller, it’s a much more upscale and exclusive community. There are no real bad or undesirable parts of Babylon. I’d guess that there’s not a lot of sub-prime lending here. The next time a Realtor tells you that Babylon is “holding it’s value”, tell them about the 34 foreclosures.

As for me, I’m waiting for the REOs that should be showing up in the spring. Until then, I’ll be hiding under my desk.

Photo by Flickr user Respres used under a Creative Commons license

I was able to get the Sold Properties feature working on my PC by disabling the firewall. Sadly, that seems to have worked only a few times. I’m still able to access the tool from my wife’s laptop for some odd reason.

Nine houses sold in Babylon in October of 2008. That’s pretty good, actually, but I expect more than a couple were holdovers from August/September.

62 Mayhew Ave

• MLS# 2097581 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $580,000 – 10/14/2008
• Prior Sales: none
• 4 bedrooms – 2 bath – Hi Ranch
• Taxes: $9,426 – Village Taxes: $866

A waterfront home on the canal. It seems to have a nice deck and a good sized lot. W. Babylon schools. the listing mentions 2 stoves and 2 refrigerators, which is often code for an illegal two family house

36 Burnage Ln

• MLS# 2095165 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $355,000 – 10/17/2008
• Prior Sales: none
• 3 bedrooms – 1.5 bath – Split Ranch
• Taxes: $8,610 – Village Taxes: none

N. Babylon schools – not in the village –

156 Cockonoe Ave

• MLS# *1016440 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $545,000 – 10/20/2008
• Prior Sales: none
• 4 bedrooms – 3 bath – Colonial
• Taxes: $11,969 – Village Taxes: $1,684

Eastern edge of the Indian section.

109 Whalers Cove

• MLS# 2075720 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $340,000 – 10/22/2008
• Prior Sales: none
• 2 bedrooms – 1.5 bath – Condo
• Taxes: $4747 – Village Taxes: ??? – Common Charge: $235

Another condo in the Whalers Cove complex. This seems about the going rate for one of these two bedroom units, but it’s hard to see spending this kind of money for a condo when you could get a whole house for not much more.

47 Frederick Ave

• MLS# 2088868 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $340,000 – 10/22/2008
• Prior Sales: none
• 3 bedrooms – 1 bath – Ranch
• Taxes: $8,523 – Village Taxes: $338

We saw this one shortly after it came on the market and wrote about it. The house needs a ton of work and I’m very surprised that it wen for $340,000. That’s only $9,000 under asking price. Still, there’s not a lot of houses in the Village in this price range, so when one comes on the market, there’s a lot of interest.

79 Mayhew Ave

• MLS# 2105961 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $400,000 – 10/27/2008
• Prior Sales: 10/04/2001: $168,500
• 3 bedrooms – 1.5 bath – Ranch
• Taxes: $6,662 – Village Taxes: $826

W. Babylon schools.

14 Araca Rd

• MLS# 2027699 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $450,000 – 10/27/2008
• Prior Sales: none
• 3 bedrooms – 1 bath – Colonial
• Taxes: $7,098 – Village Taxes: $735

Looks like a decently sized house on a bigger plot of land south of Montauk.

19 Howard St

• MLS# 2099534 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $490,000 – 10/28/2008
• Prior Sales: 07/14/2006: $411,000
• 3 bedrooms – 1.5 bath – Colonial
• Taxes: $5,440 – Village Taxes: $339

We saw this house and it’s very oddly laid out. The place was expanded some time in the 80′s and the owners were in the process of renovating. It’s significantly over the 2004 price, but I’m sure that accounts for some fairly significant work put into the place in the intervening years.

565 Pinto St

• MLS# 2032940 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $315,000 – 10/28/2008
• Prior Sales: 06/04/2004: $338,000 /li>
• 3 bedrooms – 3 bath – Ranch
• Taxes: $10,249 – Village Taxes: None

Another one of those houses that are north of the village, south of Sunrise and just over the line into the North Babylon school district. This seems to be a nice one with a full finished basement and three full baths.

Of course, for the real story here check out the prior sale. The discount off the 2004 price isn’t huge, but it’s there and it’s unmistakable.

30 The Crescent Unit #: 6

• MLS# 2101664 – Zillow Page
• Sold: $235,000 – 10/30/2008
• Prior Sales: none
• 2 bedrooms – 1 bath – Co-op
• Taxes: $??? – Village Taxes: $???

We used to run past these units all the time. They look nice from the outside, although parking is an issue.