Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Thinking about moving up to NC or SC and having some trouble finding a home that meets our needs. We've found a couple, 2 in Shelby, and are going to head up to look at them, but have heard some conflicting reports on that area. Am looking for any guidance on where we might want to look while we're up in the area.
We are looking to be ~1hr from CLT airport and ~1hr from the mountains (Asheville), so places like Shelby, and Gaffney are perfect. We are also looking for significant amounts of land (5+ acres) and would prefer not to be in a sub-development (even if it has the land) because we'd like to do some farming on the land (crops) and don't want to deal with an HOA. These criteria seem easy to meet, we see lots of houses in many of the cities in a 1hr circle of Asheville and CLT that are perfect. The problem is the last requirement..
We must have high speed, low latency Internet (cable modem or DSL, NOT satellite) as both of us work remotely and spend a lot of time on video calls and doing things like RDP where we have very stringent latency and throughput needs. This seems to be a major problem as you move beyond Shelby; a ton of houses further out (we found a house we love in Grover, but, according the owner, no DSL or cable available at ANY price). We'd consider, but aren't crazy about the idea, of moving down towards Greenville; that's a really long drive to airport and my husband flies quite often for work.
Would love to know what those who are more familiar with the area suggest. We're looking for a bigger home (3500+ sq/ft) and would love something on 20 acres (which we've found, but.. No Internet), but would be OK with 5-10 acres if that's the best we can find. We're looking to stay below 1M, so some of the really close in places to CLT aren't going to work (and are too far from the mountains anyway).
Thank you for any help/opinions you can offer! Especially if you live in a town like Rutherfordton or Grover and know that the info we have about high speed Internet is wrong (like, for example, the cable company will run the lines for a fee), please pass that along.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,688,469 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peanut1980
Thinking about moving up to NC or SC and having some trouble finding a home that meets our needs. We've found a couple, 2 in Shelby, and are going to head up to look at them, but have heard some conflicting reports on that area. Am looking for any guidance on where we might want to look while we're up in the area.
We are looking to be ~1hr from CLT airport and ~1hr from the mountains (Asheville), so places like Shelby, and Gaffney are perfect. We are also looking for significant amounts of land (5+ acres) and would prefer not to be in a sub-development (even if it has the land) because we'd like to do some farming on the land (crops) and don't want to deal with an HOA. These criteria seem easy to meet, we see lots of houses in many of the cities in a 1hr circle of Asheville and CLT that are perfect. The problem is the last requirement..
We must have high speed, low latency Internet (cable modem or DSL, NOT satellite) as both of us work remotely and spend a lot of time on video calls and doing things like RDP where we have very stringent latency and throughput needs. This seems to be a major problem as you move beyond Shelby; a ton of houses further out (we found a house we love in Grover, but, according the owner, no DSL or cable available at ANY price). We'd consider, but aren't crazy about the idea, of moving down towards Greenville; that's a really long drive to airport and my husband flies quite often for work.
Would love to know what those who are more familiar with the area suggest. We're looking for a bigger home (3500+ sq/ft) and would love something on 20 acres (which we've found, but.. No Internet), but would be OK with 5-10 acres if that's the best we can find. We're looking to stay below 1M, so some of the really close in places to CLT aren't going to work (and are too far from the mountains anyway).
Thank you for any help/opinions you can offer! Especially if you live in a town like Rutherfordton or Grover and know that the info we have about high speed Internet is wrong (like, for example, the cable company will run the lines for a fee), please pass that along.
I live in Kings Mountain. Grover has a population of less than 1,000, within the town limits. Time Warner isn't interested.
Look around Kings Mountain. There are 3 data centers on the western edge of the city. The city's utility meters are smart meters. Fiber was laid along business 74/Shelby Road /King St. & in the downtown area.
Thank you for the suggestion, we've looked in King's Mountain and can't find many houses with land available there. Land with Internet available is a hard combo it seems; at least in that area.
I never expected Internet to be such an issue; as much as I hate government regulation, this seems like one of those rare instances where they need to get involved. If you want to keep the franchise, you have to extend, for a reasonable price, Internet to anyone who asks for it. The answer I got from TWC is "no, not for any price", to one of the houses we really liked. That's a ridiculous answer, especially when we spoke to the survey people and the cable line was <3000 feet away. That's a one day job and a spool of cable for a crew, probably a few thousand dollars in direct cost (which I'd happily pay).
Thanks for the help, looking forward to additional suggestions.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,688,469 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peanut1980
Thank you for the suggestion, we've looked in King's Mountain and can't find many houses with land available there. Land with Internet available is a hard combo it seems; at least in that area.
I never expected Internet to be such an issue; as much as I hate government regulation, this seems like one of those rare instances where they need to get involved. If you want to keep the franchise, you have to extend, for a reasonable price, Internet to anyone who asks for it. The answer I got from TWC is "no, not for any price", to one of the houses we really liked. That's a ridiculous answer, especially when we spoke to the survey people and the cable line was <3000 feet away. That's a one day job and a spool of cable for a crew, probably a few thousand dollars in direct cost (which I'd happily pay).
Thanks for the help, looking forward to additional suggestions.
YW.
There aren't many posters in this area.
Have you looked north of the Kings Mountain city limits?
Have you considered buying land & building the house? I would suggest that you contact the Kings Mountain city government regarding the internet situation. The city hired a company to run fiber.
Just wanted to update, we found a home in Gaffney (yes, I know it's not NC) that seems to fit the bill. Lots of acreage and Internet available. What a nightmare the "Internet qualification" has been in the NC/SC rural regions. DSL is dying (you can't get new service in many locations, even if the existing homeowners can get it, if they didn't sign up, it's likely you can't get it) and cable typically doesn't run to rural properties.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,688,469 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peanut1980
Just wanted to update, we found a home in Gaffney (yes, I know it's not NC) that seems to fit the bill. Lots of acreage and Internet available. What a nightmare the "Internet qualification" has been in the NC/SC rural regions. DSL is dying (you can't get new service in many locations, even if the existing homeowners can get it, if they didn't sign up, it's likely you can't get it) and cable typically doesn't run to rural properties.
Good luck. I'm just surprised that you had such bad luck around Kings Mountain. I have a friend who lives north of the city who has cable.
Good luck. I'm just surprised that you had such bad luck around Kings Mountain. I have a friend who lives north of the city who has cable.
Well, there are 2 factors here. One is that we were looking for a bit tract of land, that means "off the road" which makes it difficult/expensive for the cable company to deliver new service. So that increased the difficulty even in areas that have cable (like Gaffney).
For the areas that didn't have cable, there's a ridiculous situation going on with DSL up in the NC area (and elsewhere, I'm sure). The phone company wants out of the DSL business. So they aren't building out new infrastructure and you, in most locations, can't order DSL service. You can "transfer" service if you find someone who has it and the telco does it correctly, but, should you ever lose that service, no guarantee you'll get it back.
This was just too risky for us, we did find some houses we liked that had DSL currently, but you call every provider (including what the home owner is using) and the answer is "no new service is allowable in that area"). Should something happen that caused us to lose service (transfer not done right, provider finally shuts off service) we'd be unable to stay in the home, our lines of work absolutely demand high speed/low latency connections which really only DSL/Cable and stuff like WiMax can provide.
It's a terrible situation for those who houses that are in this situation; I can't imagine who you can sell a house to today, let alone 10 years, that's not serviceable by HSI.
At the house we have an offer on, Charter did the site survey and should be starting construction soon. But it was a big deal and a lot of work to get them to run the line even though they have service on the street. For those who are looking to live on a big spread or in a rural area, make sure you understand what ISP's service the area and make sure you can live with it! I'm just glad that our first choice home had this issue so we knew to look out for it! And, after researching, this issue is not limited to us, there are many stories of the "DSL nightmare" in rural areas in the past few years (since the telco's stopped really offering it):
They're not just getting out of the DSL business, they're getting out of the copper business. DSL is based on using 100 year old technology (copper wires). The down side is that when you had voice service over copper wires you had 99.99% reliability. Local power outages didn't matter because that line was powered by the central office. Now with fiber, you need power at the receiving end too (and sometimes on the way there), so you can't count on near 100% availability.
The local telephone companies just don't want to deploy copper anymore, let alone any wire at all. In many areas, Verizon and AT&T (the two largest legacy wireline companies) are looking for permission to disconnect the lines. The lines not being disconnected are being sold off to questionable providers like Frontier.
I'm on an acre in northern Gaston county near 321, and had no problem getting high speed cable internet through Charter.
Find out where the cable companies do serve based on their wiring, and look for properties along those corridors.
I think my service is routed through Lincolnton. So go explore Lincoln county too.
Good suggestion.
OP: in addition to the above area(s), did you check Stanley NC? The ride from Gaffney to CLT would be a nuisance. I am sure there are areas in Gaston County that would fit the bill. I don't live in Stanley, but I can't imagine that Charter isn't there.
When you cross the border into York County SC, internet availability becomes more problematic...not so in NC, or at least from what I know
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
