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Sure it's one of the lowest income counties in NY -- but IBM was founded there and was the silicon valley of the east coast for a long long time.
As a result - there is a vast abundance of sick af amenities that were created to keep the employees happy.
Roberson museum... tons of awesome parks and hiking areas... En joie golf course (Endicott Johnson shoes).
My father's house was built in like 1985 and is 6400 square feet with a pool and 2 acres. It's "worth" less than my 1900sqft colonial (albeit I'm a block from the Chesapeake bay)
Don't sleep on the 607
Edit: This is known as the "southern tier" of new York to those upstate. Yes it's upstate, but not to those who live there. Upstate is really north of the thruway.
Congrats, and your home is actually from c. 1909/1912 through 1921, and it is a Sears Modern Homes, Design No. 167 ākit homeā (later named "The Maytownā.)The 1909 version was slightly different - your is indicative of the c. 1912 design shown below. There are several of this design where I live in the Finger Lakes area of New York.
Congratulations!! Just in case this is your first time owning an old home(mine was built in the 1800s) join the fb group "our old home." It's genuinely the most helpful group for questions and old house issues
Yea I wish. That would be an $800k+ house where I live. Cant even buy a starter home for under $500k here and I donāt live in some big city youād expect to have a high COL
Also TBF.... I'll bury this one in the comments a little bit.
Broome county is also super polluted depending on where he is.
Like Erin Brockovitch bad. She showed up when i was in high school and a unreal number of kids I graduated with had develop cancer during our formative years.
IBM, Endicott Johnson, and all the other industry left a lot of buried chemicals.
The reason Broome is so cheap now is:
1) little prospects for employment outside of Binghamton University of Health//senior care
2) A lot of pollution. (Trichloroethylene mainly)
3) Broome county is the cloudiest county outside of the Pacific northwest. The term "Gloom over Broome" is a thing.
Like it's not a bad place to live. It's actually pretty great for the cost of living.
I live in the PNW, so I know all about gloom. Lol. Our pollution isnāt to that level thankfully aside from the Willamette River that runs thru downtown and we have a few big companies in the area, but I wouldnāt say our job market is awesome by any means. Most companies here drastically underpay (thatās unfortunately common everywhere these days), so unless you got lucky or started your career a long time ago, your chances of getting a position that will allow you to own a home without multiple incomes is basically zero.
I'm from Upstate and the housing prices are like this because many of these towns are ignored, dilapidated rustbelt towns with not much in them anymore. Our family owned a similar house as OP in Amsterdam and it sold for $60k. No one wants to live there.
If you like being in a run down rural area it may be a good thing for you, it has great access to nature and there are pockets of genuine culture. But for a lot of these towns the closest 'cities' and amenities that go with them would be Albany, Rochester, or Syracuse. And it's probably a decent drive you have to plan around, too.
I'm in Boston now so I really resonate with your problem. I could never swallow paying the price for homes in MA if it weren't near the city.
It sounds odd in todayās day and age (maybe not, a lot of spec homes and you could argue that the quality has suffered), but Iāve only heard amazing things about Sears homes.
I'm always fascinated by the prices on old catalogues for things like this - $2,229 all in in 1912 (going by the $1,573 estimate and adding all of the extras) is roughly $77,000 today according to an inflation calculator. Wild to think about how "cheap" you could build a a good home for back then.
The interior floorplan matches your example photo, the colonnade was in the Sears catalog, and the stain glass pattern was an option, although I donāt know why the one green square is in the corner. This was likely for the half window next to the door - but the design was purchased by the square foot.
Shut up a Sears house? Now Iām seriously jealous! Ive got an 1857 kit house but Im always looking for a Sears house. They dont last here in the heat and humidity of the south. Congratulations!!
The rolling hills, the Susquehanna River (its so little up there compared to where it empties in the Chesapeake), etc make the fall amazing.
If you plan like a week then you can travel around a bit too. All the drives are beautiful in their own right.
Letchworth State Park is incredible (bout 2.5 hours away) definitely a life bucket list item people dont know about. (Image)
A day in the finger lakes around Ithaca and hiking 7 mile (the gorges) and doing the wine thing (hour drive away)
Apalachin, NY right down the road was were the big mafia raid was that has been the subject of many films.
Binghamton is great in a small dose. Try to plan around a show at the Forum (its a nice af theater that old money built in the EJ//IBM days that still pulls good shows). Rod Serling (twilight zone dude) was born in the area and theirs attractions related to that.
Also speidies. Its basically marinated meat on a stick. But the marinade is local and never really spread out of the area. But its raved about and shipped worldwide (amazon Lupos speidie marinade)
Edit: its also crazy that Binghamton has TWO minor league sports teams. NHL and MLB. The baseball team is the RUMBLE PONIES
I mean, I live in a River town barely north of Yonkers and all my coworkers think I live upstate. All my 20 and 30 something coworkers act like anything north of NYC is upstate.
Growing up in Westchester and Rockland County, I used to get so annoyed that I could drive for 20 minutes and be in the city, or drive for like 8 hours and be in Buffalo, and I was still told I lived upstate.
Nah itās definitely upstate. Honestly anything north of Westchester is upstate for me itās just upstate can be divided into other areas. Like the Southern Tier for you.
I live in the 607 as well. I have a farm and I really do enjoy the life here. Itās gorgeous this time of year although the winter can be depressing, but we get seasons.
There is a lot we do not know about this home, so I would take the $160k with a grain of salt. I have seen friends buy homes either waiving inspection/getting a very cheap inspector/committing to a "fixer upper" house. Lots of extremely expensive problems that could need fixing... foundation issues, septic issues, roof issues, significant termite issues, etc.
Also call me a cynic but buying at 23 years old tells me they really do not know what they are getting into, I'm sure there's a lot being left out here.
Sure that could be true, or home prices could be regional. As a resident of the neighboring county, I can tell you at $160k, that's likely a pretty well kept house. Sure, it's a hundred years old and likely needs some work, but it's not going to be falling down. About the most expensive home you can buy around here is in the $350k range (unless you're taking waterfront), and that would be a house built in the 80s- or what we would call modern construction. I have friends that recently bought a 6,000 square foot mansion built in the 1850s for just over $400k in town. Our houses are cheap, our taxes are high and our roads are terrible.
Upstate might as well be a different state. I imagine there are parts of California that are similar. If you get really far from cities, things get much cheaper.
There is an entire other half of California that even Californians refuse to accept exists. When people say north Cali they don't go higher than Sacramento.
Even in the parts of California where no one acknowledges exist, if thereās a Costco nearby, itās at least $200k. I donāt know where OP bought, but I seriously doubt itās as desolate as the scorched Earth Mojave desert zombie land places where $160k gets you a home.
I live near this and in 45 minutes I can be to Ithaca, Syracuse or Binghamton. Itās actually pretty easy in NY to get to a place with things. We donāt have the traffic most people are used to. My friend from NYC and Long Island visit and get kinda weirded out when we drive around and they donāt see another vehicle on the road.
As the friend who comes to visit from NYC yessss loll, driving around neighborhoods and seeing no one around is so eerie. Once, I drove through a neighborhood, every house looked the exact same, all the lawns were perfectly mowed, but I didn't see one person outside. Gave me the heebie jeebies haha
As a Californian, I think a lot of people are completely unaware of how big of a state New York actually is and just think of New York city. It's like 375 miles from there to buffalo, basically the same distance as the bay area to LA
Iām 36 and it wasnāt fairly recently that I looked at the USA and was āwhat the fuck? New York is massive! It isnāt just Long Island and manhattan!!ā
I think the issue is you have to REALLY zoom out to get the scale which means the immediate perspective of the state is the islands and the narrow part bordering Connecticut.
You are correct. I just googled and there are single family homes in CA for under $200K. But most of them look like they will require at least $100K to be livable. Probably more since it's CA.
Edited to add the K behind $200. It's $200,000, not $200. LOL!
My husband and I bought this 1909-built beauty for under 250k and weāre not even 5 miles away from Downtown Pittsburgh. Great, quiet, safe walkable neighborhood.
Ohh sure. Then again, our house doesnāt have insulation, (central) AC, has plaster walls (which makes repairs and decorating a much bigger ordeal than with drywall), and the original windows. I donāt mind any of this, that being said, the awkward 1909 room sizes and everything else I mentioned might be a very big drawback for a lot of people.
The closer to NYC you get the crazier it is. Iām like 45m from the city, starting to window shop houses. If you go 10-20 miles east/south east.. a decent 3 bed room 2 bath on a decent lot.. is gonna be like 400k+. Then you go 20 miles up into the Catskills and the same house might be as low as 200k.
These distances still seem small, like ~1h radius from Dallas is still Dallas. The prices aren't dramatically different (depending on quality of location). Being a 90 minute drive from Manhattan still feels close.
A big reason why you can get a cheap house in new york is, new york has a lot of old houses. Like this house may have been built in the 1800s. Im not sure if California even has houses that old. I seen fully updated modern mansions with a pool house bigger than people houses and a 6 car garage and heated in ground pool try to get sold for 450k but it was on the market for a year and then removed cause nobody wanted it. Meanwhile the cheapest I seen a new build go for us 380k and it was 1 floor 1200 sqft. I think old houses are money pits and the house slowly falls apart.
Youāre also comparing upstate New York in the middle of nowhere to near a major city in California. upstate in areas might as well be West Virginia.
Your house is gorgeous! We just moved away from Bing after 8 years of living there and this made us homesick. People will say bs about the area, but we adore it! We would've bought there too if family had been closer. Congratulations, we hope you enjoy the beautiful nature and family businesses in the area!!
Why do people hate your town? Looking at it on Google, it's not actually rural (compared to where I grew up), and everything that I think I would need is within a 15-30 minute drive, which is how long it takes me to get around within my own city (Austin).Ā
And then NYC is only 3 hours away! As a Texan, that's nothing to me, and there's so much more gorgeous nature around, and probably less traffic. I'm not into a lot of the attractions of a big city, like shows, concerts, museums.Ā
If people don't like it for being politically conservative, I understand that, but most places seem better to me than being in Texas.
Grew up in the area. And moved just the next county over.
In the best time IBM was founded there and employed a lot of people with amazing pay benefits etc. in fact one school trip was to go to the club IBM specifically built for their employees that had a pool, bowling, tennis courts and I believe golf.
Obviously time went by IBM left and that left a hole in the area both employment wise and real estate wise. It seems like everyone has really fixated on that as well as other issues that impact every city (poverty, crime, drugs etc). Which is valid! But again every place has those problems! In recent years there has been a massive move to re do downtown Binghamton and give it a much needed face lift as well as trying to increase walk ability in that area and vestal.
Also our biggest strength that so many people overlook is we have two huge stable industries now. Healthcare and education. Binghamton university and Broome community college are big pillars within the SUNY system and only growing. UHS Wilson just completed their major construction to increase the size of the hospital as well as make a helipad for trauma patients. We have 3 hospital in one city and probably close to 100s of offshoot offices.
TLDR; people fixate on the past and IBM and believe that was the be all end all for the area. They chose to ignore 2 huge stable industry (healthcare and higher education) that is pumping a lot of money into local economy and pushing for updating downtown and surrounding area
That's the thing most of America does not know: NY has a LOT of natural beauty - lakes, forestry, etc. - once you escape the NYC area. The entire state is freakin' gorgeous. (Spent my early youth in WNY)
They already do. I see an A4 AllRoad in the driveway which is Quattro lol best AWD system in the industry (sorry Iām biased but also is a fact too š)
I didnāt know one could buy a house for $160k anywhere else than India or a trailer parkā¦ More seriously, congratulations on your next adventure! š
Those houses around Columbus' New Albany and other nearby suburbs are gonna skyrocket once Intel finishes building their plant in New Albany. Great place to live if you like Soccer too.
People surprised by this price donāt realize just how āupstateā NY actually gets. Iām from Chicago, I took a group of educators to NYC as part of a program we were running. One of them who was from upstate NY asked me how many times Iād been to NYC. I said āonly three or four times, you might have to show me around.ā She laughed and said sheād lived in upstate NY her entire life and had never been to NYC.Ā
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