It seems like things might be turning around with the economy, although I do have noted a few people talking about moving away from New York recently because of how expensive it is here. Our across the street neighbor just put his house up for sale within the last week or so. I got a chance to speak with him yesterday. He was working for an internet company as an “online editor” awhile back and he seemed to change jobs as the industry took a hit.

He and his wife’s story is probably like many people in I believe he was working at a company where they were throwing around money like it was going out of style at a time everything with a dotcom attached to its name was an investment bankers wet dream. Lots of mad money in stock options and salary enabling him and his wife to get a house and have a kid - she stopped working shortly after they moved in and got pregnant not too long after.

Well, when the internet bubble burst, he cut his hair (when they first moved in he wore a pony tail), changed his mode of dress and started putting in much longer hours.

Where are they moving? North Dakota, where her family is from and things are lots cheaper (although those winters, bbrrrrrrrr!). The house they purchased for between $200 and $250k is on the market for $35 0! This is after being in it for only a few years!

Of course, the Metro North fare went up 25%, the subway just went to $2, everyone is talking about budget shortfalls in New York city and in Albany and the tax increase that will go along with it.

I wa s n’t a big fan of Bloomberg’s try at reinstating the commuter tax. A lot of my city resident friends will probably argue that I use city services but, the truth no one confronts is the difference in property taxes between the city and the burbs with city p roperty owners getting off pretty light. Even with the increase! I have friends who’ve been looking to purchase a home (and move from the new mecca of youth - Williamsburg).

Well, they looked at one home up in Westchester (priced at $600k) where the y early school taxes were $11k (and that was on the low end for a lot of the communities up here) - meanwhile they also looked at a brownstone in the city with an asking price of $800k and somehow even though the property was almost 25% more, the yearly tax es are $1,600!

If the tax rate in the city was really comparable to what it is in the burbs it would put the yearly tax rate at more like $13,750. That’s a difference of $12,150 per year for just one property.

Seems to me for all the crying about the incre dible tax burden on city dwellers there some strange arithmetic going on here. Before they start looking to place a levy on people living beyond the city’s boundaries, I really think they should be looking to assessing property at it’s true value and makn g property owners pony up their share.

And for what its worth I guarantee you they don’t have the level of services city residents enjoy. It’s not surprising though considering there was some news awhile back about building inspectors taking bribe money to lower assessed values of property.

Besides most of the people I know living in the city, rent.

The one thing I don’t understand though is why the federal government is less than forth coming with money for the city - you’d think by now it would be apparent to the people running this nation that when New York city experiences a boom in its economy, the rest of the country seems to do well too.