Are property taxes stopping many from home ownership

[meaculpa2011]

32. We were very lucky.

We moved from a small (tiny) apartment in Manhattan in 1977 and bought a two-family attached home in Queens. It was, at the time, a less-than-desirable neighborhood. We lived there very cheaply and the area experienced an upswing.

We sold the house seven years later for nearly four times what we paid for it and bought our current home in Oceanside. It was a fixer upper and 28 years later I was still fixing when Sandy came through and washed away our first floor. Thankfully I carried full replacement flood insurance and the major renovation we were planning is now being paid for by the insurance company.

There's a little known program here that allows homeowners 62 or over to convert up to 800 square feet into a rental apartment. We're thinking very seriously of doing it since our kids are now in their early 20s, the young one out on her own, and we don't need all that space anymore.