Town of Hempstead neighborhoods, one community at a time

Town of Hempstead neighborhoods cover a huge piece of southern and central Nassau County, and no two of them work the same way. The Town of Hempstead is the most populous town in New York State, and it runs from the Queens line in Elmont and Valley Stream all the way east to Seaford, and from the Hempstead Turnpike corridor down to the bays and barrier beaches of the South Shore.

Town Hall sits in the Village of Hempstead, but most people never think of themselves as living in "the Town." They live in Bellmore, or Oceanside, or Levittown. That matters when you buy or sell here, because the town name on your tax bill tells you very little. The hamlet, the incorporated village if there is one, the school district and the nearest train line tell you almost everything.

Some of these communities are incorporated villages with their own mayor, building department and village taxes, like Valley Stream and Island Park. Others are unincorporated hamlets, where the Town of Hempstead handles building permits and code. A buyer comparing two houses a mile apart can be looking at two different building departments, two different school districts and two different tax structures, and we walk you through each one before you write an offer.

The Town of Hempstead's patent dates to 1644, and by its own description it is the largest township in the United States, with 22 incorporated villages. Its Norman J. Levy Park and Preserve in Merrick and the Marine Nature Study Area in Oceanside are both Town parks. Across the town, the Census puts the typical home's year built at 1954, the oldest of the seven towns on our site, and about 77 percent are single-family houses.

We are Mark Vogler and Gina DeMaio, The Vogler Team at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Laffey International Realty. Our office is in Huntington, and we work all of Nassau, Suffolk and Queens, which puts the Town of Hempstead right in the middle of the map we cover every week.

Gina was born and raised on Long Island, and Mark spent 30 years in construction and homebuilding before real estate. That combination earns its keep on the South Shore in particular. A lot of the houses here have been expanded, raised, dormered or rebuilt over the decades, and some waterfront homes were lifted after Superstorm Sandy. We walk a house together, and Mark sees which work was done well and which work a buyer's inspector will circle. On the selling side, that walk-through is part of how we set a price. You can read how we price in our pricing step.

Our comps follow the same rules an appraiser does: same town, same school district, same style, similar size, sold recently. In a place this big that discipline matters, because a cape in Levittown and a cape in Seaford are not the same house to an appraiser, even if they look alike from the curb. We have about 150 homes closed in seven years, and we answer the phone well into the evening, before and after you sign.

The housing here is mostly single-family, with a lot of variety inside that word. You will see postwar capes and ranches in Levittown and parts of East Meadow, colonials and split-levels across Bellmore and Merrick, hi-ranches throughout the South Shore, and bulkheaded canal homes in Seaford, Merrick, Bellmore, Oceanside and Island Park. Closer to the city line, Elmont and Valley Stream add older colonials and Tudors on smaller lots, along with some co-ops and two-family homes.

For sellers, that variety is the reason pricing from a zip code average goes wrong. Two streets apart, one house can be in a flood zone with a flood insurance bill a buyer has to budget for, and the other can be on high ground with none. One house can have a finished basement with permits and a certificate of occupancy, and the next can have a finished basement with neither. Those details move the price, and they come out at inspection if nobody looks first.

For buyers, the variety is an opportunity if you know what you are looking at. A dated house with good bones on a good block is often a better buy than a flipped one with cosmetic work over old problems. Mark helps you tell which is which. If you are trading up, our move-up buyer page covers how to time buying and selling in the same market.

Our advice for anyone buying or selling here is simple: start with the exact address. We confirm the hamlet or village, the school district and the building department before anything else, because in this town those three answers set the price and the paperwork.

Life in the Town of Hempstead runs on a few big roads and a few train lines. The Southern State Parkway, Sunrise Highway, Merrick Road and Hempstead Turnpike carry most of the east-west traffic, and the Meadowbrook and Wantagh Parkways run south to Jones Beach. The LIRR Babylon Branch serves Bellmore, Merrick and Seaford, the Long Beach Branch serves Oceanside and Island Park, and Valley Stream sits where several lines meet.

On weekends, people head to Eisenhower Park, Jones Beach, Valley Stream State Park, the bays for boating and fishing, and the downtown strips along Merrick Road and Sunrise Highway. Pick the community that fits how you live, and we will show you what is actually for sale there. When you are ready to talk, tell us what you are looking for or start with The Vogler Team home page.