Dual income couple I know. Both work in NYC. 1 baby, and another is planned.

They are house shopping in Long Island.

Yet, no real roots there.
One set of in-laws live in Staten Island.
Other set of in-laws live in Westchester.

It will be a 1.5 hour commute. And further from both sets of parents (daycare?) In fact, it sounds like they will have to have an au pair if both continue to work. Do you see any potential pitfalls with this plan? Have they overlooked anything? (That will be obvious in hindsight)

In my experience, this is a very common situation. Often families have parents in other states. Staten Island and Westshester County are pretty close in distance to Long Island. They will meet other families in their neighborhood who will help them out with driving their children to various activities if necessary. I think it is a very typical situatiion and nothing to worry about. The commute is often the only downtime for the parents for them to nap a little or catch up with their work or reading.

For now if they can afford it, they should have a live in nanny, but in a few years they can have someone who comes in each weekday. Usually one parent drops off the kids at school and the nanny, who should drive, picks the kids up from school if they do not bus transportation which is an incresaingly common situation in Long Island.

Bad idea....I wish I had raised my child in NYC. If you can afford to live in NYC, raise your children here. You will be close to them, have almost no commute (good luck to you when you start the commute...horrible), they will grow up much more sophisticated .and wordly I found Long Island boring!!!
You will have in laws that will be happy to come into the city and take care of the kids and then do some fun things themselves.
Long Island is not that close to Westchester and Staten Island....what about when the child is sick and has to be picked up at school? Yes, you can have some nice neighbors and make good friends.....but that is also a maybe. How many will be that willing to help all the time with your kids??
I wish you good luck with whatever decision you make.

"they will grow up much more sophisticated .and wordily"

Right.

Like the kids in the projects on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea.

There are some sad people on this board that can't just give good advice, they have to tear down people all the time. Very insecure individuals!!!
I lived on Long Island for 23 years and in Manhattan for 17 yrs so I can give some advice to new parents thinking of moving to the suburbs.
And.......for your information, I was BORN in PRADA, ITALY...nothing to do with Miuccia Prada, fashion designer!!!

"Bad idea....I wish I had raised my child in NYC. If you can afford to live in NYC, raise your children here."

Prada, if I had a dollar for every person I know that sold their coop to go to the suburbs for an alleged better life and vehemently regretted it, I would be able to cash buy into 15 CPW.

I don't think NYC is an option. If combined income is around $300k-$350k, living in a 2BR might not be their idea of "home sweet home".

w67 if in 2 years RE is 50% off in NYC and around, we have big problems and your Sprint will be zero as well as most stocks so that will be a big equalizer. chances are many of us won't have jobs and inflation will eat away all your cash. so you better hope for a less dramatic outcome.

Nothing wrong with wanting to move away from your family. How do you think California was populated?
Moving to Long Island strikes me as the worst of both worlds. Bad commute, expensive houses, ugly sprawl and traffic. Managing two commutes with kids at home will be unpleasant.
There are dozens of places I'd rather live on $200k than Long Island on $300K. I'd take NYC over all of them though.

All it takes for manhattan to be down 50% is for mortgages to go to 8%+...if you think that's not going to happen you're ignoring 100 yrs of mortgage mkt which is probably not a safe bet...

ahem, the family in westchester and si are the REASON these people are movig to li. also, mars is terrible commute.

at last it's not jersey, amirite?

thank you. Romney Christie 2012 anyone?

cuz remember like a year ago when i said he wasgetting the 2012 nom? hiw awesome was that. i also said he's winning...

hey truth!