living in delaware?

Can you tell me how it is like living in Delaware? House prices? Taxes ?,schools ? Any info is helpful.. thanks

living in delaware?

You need to be more specific. Asking what it%26#39;s like living in Delaware is like asking what it%26#39;s like living in New York. Long Island and Genesee are as different as Wilmington and Lewes. Can you be more specific? My wife and I spend every minute of our spare time (every weekend from april through november) at our place in ';slower lower'; Delaware.

living in delaware?

I`m looking for a laid back area. Maybe a new house around 200,000.00. I need a great high school that has an orchestra. I`m looking into North Carolina but the family complains we are moving to far from Long Island. We are looking into a more affordable life and great weather.We want to still live near the ocean ,like we do here. Thanks in advance.

I lived on LI for many years, graduated from LIU (Post campus). I%26#39;ve been living in PA for the past fifteen years, basically to get away from the cost of living on the island. If we had a choice, and jobs were plentiful, my wife and I would move to Delaware in a heartbeat.

Lower DE, (Slower Lower Delaware as it%26#39;s affectionately known) is the place you want to be if you%26#39;re looking to be near the ocean. Once you get north of Lewes you%26#39;re on the shoreline of the Delaware Bay, which is nice but not the same as being on the Atlantic. Although there is a town that we really like north of Lewes and inland just a bit called Milford. It%26#39;s a very nice town, laid back, away from the tourist areas, but still close to the mouth of the bay (21 miles, which is nothing like 21 miles on Long Island...half hour, tops). Housing in Lewes, Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, and Bethany Beach is, of course, not cheap since they are the beach towns. But ';cheap'; is a relative term, especially when comparing housing costs and real estate taxes to Long Island. There is no comparison. Just out of curiosity, I did a quick search on realtor.com and saw a house in Milford for $199,000; 1,568 sq ft cape cod style, three bedroom, 2 bath, on a third of an acre. There was also a 1,950 sq ft home that may have been a farm house, on a little over an acre, for the same price. Oddly enough, it only had 2 bedrooms (maybe it was altered at some time)...and there were others.

The real estate tax rate for Milford is, I believe, .41 per hundred dollars of assessed value as of 2002. (Maybe someone could verify this). Which would make the town%26#39;s tax on a $200,000.00 home $820/year. Sussex County real estate tax is .445 and assessed on %50 percent of the 1974 appraisal... that%26#39;s right...1974. (Someone local might verify this as well). So when you compare the many, many, thousands of dollars you pay on LI in real estate taxes it completely changes how you look at home values.

Delaware has no sales tax, none. That makes a big difference in your day to day living. No sales tax on big ticket items either.

Another option is to look for property along the Indian River Bay which, if you look at a map, runs directly south of Rehoboth Beach along Rt 24. Even twenty minutes ';inland'; puts you a mere four miles up the bay, by boat, from the inlet (ten-fifteen minutes to the atlantic by boat).

My wife and I have a place on Long Neck about half a mile from the bay, and we spend every weekend from, well, this weekend coming up, through November and into the early part of December. Just about every Saturday and Sunday we drive to Cape Henlopen State Park to go surf fishing. With a surf fishing tag you can drive onto the beach with a 4x4, park, and hang out all day long...very nice. We also have a small boat that we take out into the Indian River Bay to drop our crab pots Friday evening or Saturday mornings. 24 hours later two pots can bring in 2-4 dozen legal maryland blue crabs.

There is a lot of residential development going on along rt 24. Out in this area, Long Neck, Oak Orchard, etc...you can pick up a new 1,900 sq ft town house for just under 200k. Check the area out. I will say that Rehoboth and the other beach towns along rt 1 can get a little crazy during the summer months, but living on LI you probably wouldn%26#39;t even flinch at the traffic. But you probably wouldn%26#39;t want to live right in town anyway. Lewes, for example, which was the first city in the United States, and might remind you of umm...maybe a Northport or Port Jeff, lists 790 properties for sale...of those, only 21 fall between $175k and $225k. Of those, the ones at $200k are actually in Angola By The Bay, (down rt 24). I don%26#39;t know much about the schools...I don%26#39;t have kids there, but it should be fairly easy to check them out...Milford School District, Cape Henlopen School District...

Anyway, I%26#39;ve been long winded enough. I%26#39;m sure there are more things I could tell you and if you%26#39;d like, I%26#39;ll follow up with another post.

OK, you%26#39;ve got me on a roll...tell me to shut up if you%26#39;d like :). A couple of things that came to mind after I sent the last post. Atlantic water temps off Delaware are warmer than LI. This past October 1st, Anne (my wife) and I were fishing off ';the point'; at Cape Henlopen and throughout the day I went swimming very comfortably. (weather was too cold just a couple of weeks later though). My brother, who spends most of his summer running out to LI to visit friends went with us to Cape Henlopen in late September...he was shocked at how much warmer the water was than at Robert Moses. Said it was the warmest water he was in all year...we were swimming at dusk after he got off the ferry from Cape May. Although Delaware isn%26#39;t as warm as NC it is one ';planting zone'; south of LI and Pennsylvania. Crape Myrtle, which doesnt grow well in PA does just fine in Delaware. The January ';mean'; temp for Islip, for example, is 30.1 degrees. The mean January temp for Lewes is 36.7. Doesn%26#39;t sound like a lot, but believe me there%26#39;s a difference...let%26#39;s face it...one is below freezing, the other isn%26#39;t. All of that snow that dumps on both of us tends to stay away from Delaware.

Also, Delaware has never had a direct hit from a hurricane. LI, as we both know, gets hit fairly often with the remnants of the hurricanes headed up the coast.

Henry tells it like it is...Slower Lower Delaware (LSD!) is a great place to live, especially if you are retired. If not, you may have trouble finding work, even at a fraction of your present salary.

Taxes are very cheap, so are car registrations (%26amp; free inspections), almost everything is cheaper in DE (except gas %26amp; a few grocery items). The Cape Henlopen (HS)School district is the one you want, if you have school age kids.

The only other minus, besides the job market (%26amp; summer traffic!), is home prices. Unless you go with a modular or mobile home on leased ground, you will basically find nothing in your price range unless you go 3+ miles from the beach. At about 3 miles, $225K will buy a small rancher needing cosmetics. At 5 miles or more, 200K will buy a decent home. Even some of the inland towns (Milton, Milford, Millsboro) are getting expensive for decent housing. Laurel %26amp; Seaford are still cheap but quite a hike from the beach.

Good luck to you.

Paddlin mentioned something that I skipped...but for a specific reason. Land lease is definitely an option, and a relatively inexpensive way to live very near or even on the water. Manufactured housing communities like Pot-Nets, for example, are kind of hard to explain, especially since there really isn%26#39;t anything like them on LI...but I%26#39;ll give it a go.

Most people, when they think of a mobile home park, picture sixty-five foot long tin cans on slabs of concrete shoved up against other tin cans on a similar slabs of concrete.

Manufactured housing communities like Pot-Nets, and others in the area, are not like this. The Pot-Nets communities (I%26#39;ll use them as an example because that%26#39;s where our place is) are gated, with guards at the gatehouses during the weekends in the summer. Pot-Nets Bayside has two swimming pools, a small restaurant, crabbing pier, baseball fields, marina, boat ramp, small beaches on the bay, playgrounds, community center, year round security and maintenance and public sewer and water. Lots range from very small (on or very near the water) to much larger...our lot is just under a quarter acre and is a three or four minute drive to the bay, crabbing pier, marina, restaurant, and boat ramp. One of the pools and the baseball diamond is a couple hundred yards away.

All of the housing that has been put in over the past five to ten years is modular, unlike the older mobile homes. Our place, for example, is a 20+ year old mobile home. Next door is a brand new 1,300 sq ft modular home.

The modular home next door is on the market for $80k. But as paddlin pointed out, it%26#39;s a land lease situation. So on top of the 80k you pay for the home, there is annual lot rent. The larger lots, away from the water, are actually less annually (ours is just over $5k). A nice modular on the water will run $90-$150k plus lot rent which is probably $10k annually. These lots are very small. Annual taxes are very low...a few hundred dollars.

The other thing with these communities is that probably half the residents are seasonal and half are full time. Our street is about a fifty-fifty split. You can get a better idea of what these places are like by going to the Pot-Nets web site. (www.potnets.com)

You didn%26#39;t mention how old the kids are. To expand on HNRY AFRIKA %26#39;S post. Long Neck Elementary is about nine years old and a good school. The Middle School is ancient and the High School new this year.Both this school district and the one closer to the beach (Cape Henlopen ) are getting crowded due to all the new construction. There are jobs for skilled trades and Professionals other thabthat low wage with few if any benefits. Hnry Afrika trying to place you . Do you have any kids?

Beached,

No kids that are school age. My wife and I are in our early forties...we actually live in PA but are in Long Neck so often that we say we ';live in Delaware and just drive back to PA to work';. We can be found surf fishing at Henlopen just about every weekend, out on the bay dropping pots, and frequently at the legion on 24 for a pitcher or two. We have friends who just built a house east of rt 1, down by the outlets, so we do spend some time in Rehoboth as well...Dos Locos, Obie%26#39;s, Irish Eyes, Iguana, Frogg Pond.......etc., etc...

Beached,

Do you live on Long Neck?

Wow, you guys are all right!!!!! My child is 13 years old. will be entering 9th grade next year.I will follow up on everything in your post. Thanks.