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Hey everyone thanks for taking the the time to respond. I have been reading through the forums trying to get a feel for the area. My wife and I are looking to relocate to improve our career prospects and lifestyle. We currently live just outside of Iowa City, IA, a university town with 75k population. It's just too quiet here and the weather sucks. We make frequent trips to Chicago just to get a feel for the urban because we grow tired of walking the same areas in our little downtown. My wife is from a huge city (Moscow) and dislikes Iowa because its too rural. I have been working in IT for 15 years and will be looking for an IT Director type position. Thankfully my current temporary job I can do from home so I will be arriving with an income of just above 50k but I hope that will increase once my wife is employed and once I transition to a higher level job. My wife will be fresh from a programming school and looking for a career with very little real life programming experience. Any thoughts or suggestions of what areas might meet our needs would be greatly appreciated. Also I'm curious if we would have enough income to live comfortably (for example by comparison outside of Houston one can get a 2200sq ft new construction home for $170k). School district is not an issue for us, more so I would be interested in areas that are more unique and interesting but with low crime.
Is there enough IT jobs in the Charleston area?
Is there enough to do in the area - outdoor activities, urban environments/shopping, (I know there is some neat older parts of the city that would be great to walk around in)
Is there a cafe culture in Charleston, outdoor seating at cafes for people watching etc and is it year round?
Our needs
Housing below 180k
access to IT jobs within 30 minutes
walkable neighborhood
Current expenses
Full coverage insurance on 2 2013 vehicles $160 with perfect driving record
Mortgage $730 (140k house including prop tax and insurance)
Water/elec/gas/internet run about $300 per month
How much are Taxes in SC?
Charleston is not an inexpensive place to live unless you're moving from the Northeast or California. Compared to Houston, it's definitely more expensive both in housing, taxes and the job market is more competitive here. There are IT jobs but be prepared to get one before you make the move. It took my well qualified spouse almost a year to find a full time permanent job. There seem to be IT jobs in most larger cities.
If you're looking for a really urban experience then Charleston might not be what you're looking for. The most urban part of the city is the peninsula which itself is made up of only about 120,000 people 1/3 of which are college students who drive up rents every year. The 'city' part of Charleston is only a few miles large. Charleston is kind of walkable in the sense that there are sidewalks, but its pretty spread out and very residential so you definitely drive pretty much every where, not unlike almost all southern cities. That said, most places where people live are only about a $15 uber ride to the peninsula. I also ha e noticed a lot of new restaurants/bars/coffee ahops opening off the penninsula because downtown space is being snapped up by nation companies or developers who can afford it. IT jobs aren't too hard to come by, but we have a code school here as well so your wife will be competing with those students as well as the computer science students for entry level dev jobs.
Charleston is going to be more expensive than Iowa City. If you're willing to downscale to a smaller house, you can find newer construction in Summerville/Goose Creek for that price. You might be looking at a 1600 sqft house though and it's not the bustling urban experience... More like a quaint small town slightly removed from Charleston. I'm afraid downtown Charleston is too expensive for that budget.
Other expenses depend on your lifestyle but taxes aren't that hard to calculate. This will give you a guide for Charleston County:
Thanks for the feedback everyone. My current position is a fall back position after running IT operations for a Wind Turbine company that eventually took a dive so once I transition to a new position I'm sure my salary will increase triple fold but for now this is what I got. The nice part is that I can take it anywhere. I'm thinking Charleston looks like a gorgeous town but may not have the urban edge we are looking for. So back to the drawing board. Still looking at Houston but I'm worried the layoffs from the oil biz may create a glut of IT people there as well. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
I'd say pretty much every city in the country is becoming more urban at a really high rate. More people than ever want to live in walkable cities, so cities everywhere are building the infrastructure to support that demand. Unfortunately southern cities we're built to be dense like northeastern cities, so they are farther behind in terms of urban infrastructure. My advice would be, if its warm weather you're after, look at the direction a city is headed in terms of investment and urbanization, because in 10 years a lot of the cities you're ruling out for not having an urban edge might have everything you're looking for in a short amount of time.
Most people in our area are pretty adamantly fighting against urbanization. They don't want to be rural, but they don't want high density either.
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