All Your Base Are Belong To Us

Soon, all of your houses will become our summer homes:

A survey being released today found that a majority of Long Islanders — 56 percent — say that they may move away within five years. The study is part of the Long Island Index project commissioned by the Rauch Foundation in Garden City. Researchers at Stony Brook University polled 1,215 adults for the survey, which has a margin of sampling error of 2.8 percentage points.

The urge to leave has risen markedly in just the past year and is especially intense among two age groups, the survey found.

Sixty-four percent of those in the pre-retirement years of 50 to 64 are considering leaving, up from 47 percent last year, the survey found. For them, the inducements include capturing the huge run-up in the value of homes they bought years ago, enjoying the warmer climate in other regions and downsizing for retirement, especially if their children have grown up and no longer attend the island’s highly-rated public schools.

But even more of the 18-to-34 age group contemplate moving out — 70 percent, up from 62 percent last year. Their motivations include the high cost of rentals, stemming from the island’s scarcity of apartments. For many young adults, prohibitively expensive down payments have transformed the dream of a starter home into an elusive fantasy.

(Oh, and that’s so 1998.)