Long Islanders priced out by high rents move out of state

Former Oceanside resident Alexa Trippiedi loved her proximity to beaches, farms on the East End and New York City.

The 25-year-old, who grew up in the Nassau hamlet, likely would have stayed in the apartment she shared with her boyfriend for around $1,600 a month but their landlords decided to sell the house. A new place to rent would have cost them more than $2,000 a month.

“We were like, ‘That’s crazy,’ ” she said. “So we left.”

Trippiedi, who works remotely for a law firm in Manhattan, `moved to Pennsylvania in October with her boyfriend, Nick Adduci, joining thousands of Long Islanders who have fled the region in search of affordable housing.

More than 434,000 people moved away from Long Island between 2017 and 2021, according to a 2024 report from the Long Island Association's Research Institute. The "root cause" for that migration continues to be the "cost of living crisis" facing the region, LIA president Matt Cohen said in a letter introducing the analysis. The LIA is the region’s leading business group.

More than 350,000 people moved to the Island during that same time period, the report said, resulting in a net loss of nearly 84,000 residents. Households moving to Long Island often had higher median incomes than households leaving the region, the report notes. 

While Florida remains a top contender for Long Island residents leaving the region, Pennsylvania is the second-most popular state and North Carolina is the third, according to the report. 

The problem isn't new. But it hasn't improved, either, as the Island continues to contend with an affordability crisis

'This is a tough place to live'

“For anybody earning under $100,000 a year, frankly, this is a tough place to live. And that’s why folks are leaving,” said Richard Koubek, chair of the Suffolk County Welfare to Work Commission, an advisory board to the Suffolk County Legislature. 

The median income for households in Suffolk County between 2019 and 2023 was $128,329, and $143,408 in Nassau County, according to the most recent census data.

More than a third of Long Island renters and homeowners are "cost-burdened," which means they pay more than 30% of their income toward housing, according to a 2024 report from the state comptroller. New York ranked third among states with the highest cost burden for homeowners, and 13th for renters in 2022, the report said.

Property taxes on Long Island are also among the highest in the country with median property taxes over $10,000 per year, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit focused on tax policy. 

Fair market rent for a two-bedroom on Long Island in 2025 is $2,586, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Assuming most people aim to spend 30% of their income on housing, a family would need to earn more than $90,000 to afford those rates. 

Just over 17% of housing stock in Suffolk and 16% in Nassau are rentals, Newsday has reported, falling far below the national average of 34.6%.

Keeping up with high costs

“It’s a problem, there’s no question about it,” said Gail Lamberta, associate dean of community development at St. Joseph’s University in Patchogue. “The cost of living is high on Long Island.”

Besides housing, “almost one salary is going to child care,” she said. In 2023, according to the state Department of Labor, infant care cost Nassau families $21,914 and Suffolk families $21,599.

There has also been an increasing reliance on local food pantries, according to a September report from the Welfare to Work Commission. Thirty percent of people who use the Harry Chapin Regional Food Bank represent the “working poor” — people working two or three jobs to keep up with the cost of living in the region, the report says.

"Almost everything," including food, "is more expensive on Long Island than in similar suburban areas around the country," said Peter Crescenti, spokesman for the food bank. 

Also in 2023, Long Island ranked fourth among regions with the highest level of move-outs in the country, according to data from PODS, a popular storage and moving business. Rising rent, affordable housing crises and high tax rates were popular reasons cited for the move, the company said.

Interest in leaving the region seems to come “in spurts,” said Lorraine McAvoy-Mowl, who moderates a Facebook group with around 4,500 members for Long Islanders who have moved, or are considering moving, to North Carolina. 

“Someone will mention the group in another [Facebook] group like, say, Smithtown Moms, or Rocky Point Moms, or whatever Moms group, and we’ll notice an influx of people requesting to join the group" seeking information about schools and how affordable it is to live in North Carolina, she said.

The Long Island native, who now lives near Raleigh, North Carolina, said the state is a popular choice for Long Islanders. Among her friends in the area, just one isn’t from the region.

“I think the coastal areas can remind you of Long Island in the summertime,” she said, plus the mountains are just a few hours away — also similar to Long Island.

“I will also say that prices down here are not as cheap as they used to be,” she added. “I think it’s starting to catch up with the rest of the country.”

'I would not go back'

Hayley Krupp, 31, left Long Island in 2022.

With her parents and siblings, she packed up and moved to New Kensington, Pennsylvania, where the family rented a three-story, five-bedroom house for around $2,500 per month.

They split the costs, and everybody had their own space. Within two months, Krupp found a job at AAA making the same salary she earned on Long Island and eventually moved into a two-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend, where the couple split the $800 monthly rent.

It’s cheaper there, Krupp said, especially without a sales tax on clothes in Pennsylvania. There aren’t as many restaurants, but that might be “a good thing, because you save money in that way too,” she said.

There’s no traffic, she’s close to nature, and people seem to be nicer, Krupp said. Even if she was single, she could afford to live on her own.

“I would not go back to Long Island for anything, and I lived there for my entire life up until I was 29,” she said. “I was by myself for a long time and there was just no way that I was going to be able to get out of a basement.”

'Signals of hope'

All hope is not lost though, said Lamberta of St. Joseph's, highlighting a greater push for mixed-use facilities and affordable housing among lawmakers and developers on Long Island.

The local job market also remains strong, said Lamberta, who is involved with several community organizations, including the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council. According to the state Labor Department, there was a 1.4% increase in private sector employment over the past year on Long Island, where unemployment in December 2024 stood at 3%.

There's also a greater effort to educate high school and college students about careers in the area and how to manage finances, she said. "These are all signals of hope."

But, for now, Trippiedi doesn’t plan to come back any time soon.

“We’ve been here a few months and we love it. We’re thinking about staying here,” she said, citing lower expenses in Pennsylvania, and a bigger apartment than she would have been able to afford on Long Island.

“I didn’t want to leave, but it is exciting to experience a new place and not have to worry about finances and making everything count,” she said, adding: “It’s a lot easier here. I’m not as stressed. And we could always go back.”

By Brianne Ledda

brianne.ledda@newsday.com@brianne_ledda

Brianne Ledda covers personal finance and affordability for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.