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Hi all, my wife and I just spent a week on a recon visit to Greenville, to see if it's the place for our relocation. I'm posting this to offer some perspective for those who may be in a similar position to us: we currently live in NJ, and are looking in Greenville for a home somewhere in the $500k - $600 range or thereabouts.
The first thing I can say is that all the photos posted by Skyliner and others on this forum provide an accurate snapshot of the downtown area. So thanks to those folks. It really is that beautiful!
We were very impressed by the city. The heart of downtown is charming and very accommodating. We didn't have a bad meal the entire time, and the park is stunningly well-kept. Overall, it is very attractive. We really enjoyed it.
Before our visit, I spent untold hours searching the MLS sites for homes. Dozens of homes look great. The problem is that until you visit, you have no perspective on where the subdivisions are in relation to the city, or what those subdivisions or areas look like. Obviously, different people will have different feelings about any neighborhood or subdivision, so I can only provide my opinion. So I won't go into a laundry list of all the places I visited unless someone has a specific question I can answer. But I will say that there are some beautiful places and the home values overall are excellent compared to NJ. We probably saw about 60 houses.
For us, we made the determination that we'd prefer to live within about 15 minutes of downtown. Any more than that and we'd be less likely to enjoy all it has to offer. That is not to say that there aren't some very good restaurants outside the city proper, there are.
Some random observations:
There are a lot of great subdivisions. The trick is finding the house you want on the lot you want in the area you want (more later).
If you are concerned about having access to the shopping options you are used to having in NJ, fear not. There is abundant shopping everywhere, and every imaginable national chain is represented.
As mentioned restaurants are numerous and there are some very good ones....service was excellent everywhere.
I have read complaints about the horrible traffic on Woodruff road and elsewhere, but from a NJ perspective, it is laughable. We drove all over the place at all times of the day and night, and I only ran into traffic twice, once for a temporary road stoppage for construction, and once for a bad accident. Otherwise, I couldn't find what I would call traffic (I used to commute into Manhattan everyday by car, though!).
Property taxes are comparatively minuscule relative to NJ. Most homes in the range I was looking had property taxes in the low $2k area. I realize there are taxes on vehicles, but they still don't get you anywhere near what we are paying up here.
It was fairly warm while we visited in the beginning of September (high 80s, low 90s), and at times humid. Most of the time it's not uncomfortable. It seems to become more humid for a time after 7PM or so.This may or may not be representative of the usual weather, but we found it just fine. I'm sure it can become hotter and more humid earlier in the summer. There is a vast difference between being in the sun and being in the shade, though! So one thing to think about is whether the property you are looking at has some shade. There are a number of subdivisions that are almost completely devoid of trees because the developer clearcut the entire plat.
We barely saw a bug of any kind the whole time we were there, except a few fire ant mounds. I was a little concerned about this beforehand, but feel a bit better about it now. I'm sure there are plenty of bugs everywhere, but it was certainly not obvious. Even in the Falls Park at night, we found no bugs. It was almost weird. Maybe we just caught a good week.
All the schools we saw seem nearly brand new. I can't speak to the quality of education, and it's only a concern of mine from a resale perspective, but the facilities sure look good (and large!).
Anyhow, these are some personal thoughts, so take them for what they are worth. We found Greenville to be the place that we will relocate to in the next 9 months. It is calling to us.
The trick for us will be to find the home we want on the right lot. In that respect, it is a little challenging to find a newly built house on a level property with about a half acre in a nice place with trees, preferably with public sewers. They are out there, but it will take some searching. Many of the new construction offerings have been configured on smaller lots, and many of them are on slanted lots with poorly usable outdoor areas. But we'll find it...
I hope this info is of some use to anyone thinking of a relocation to Greenville. If someone has specific questions, I'll be glad to provide whatever insight I can.
Thanks for your trip story. Sounds like you had a good time. With your price range, you could just locate in a nice condo downtown or a home on Augusta Road. Did you look in those areas? You could be in a condo at McBee Station less than fifty feet from Publix (nice southeastern chain grocery store), Staples, and other retail/restaurants.
A condo is not for me, we need at least a 4-bedroom house and a little space. I did look at a few properties in the Augusta Road area, but those particular properties really had no yards. We did drive around that area a bit, though, and thought parts of the neighborhood were very attractive....it reminded us a lot of where we live now.
My wife does not want an older home, though, and they seem to make up the majority of homes in the Augusta Road area. After 20 years of living in a 1941 home, I can't really argue with her. That's not to say we couldn't find something we liked, and that area is certainly still on our list. It sure would be convenient to downtown.
We also drove through Chanticleer nearby and saw some interesting properties from the car, but didn't get inside any of them on this trip. The adjacent Greenville CC looks to be in superb condition, btw.
I gotcha. Chanticleer is very nice. Lots of doctors live there. My mom works at the hospital right across the street. I would definitely recommend it. Convenient to Augusta Road which has shopping and food. Only five minutes from downtown too.
I'm not sure if you check out the Parkins Mill area or not, but it's another great neighborhood in the City of Greenville, though it's much more spacious than Augusta Rd area. It's less than 15 minutes from downtown and has great schools. The area was developed around the 70's and onward, so the houses aren't really old, but you have a good established neighborhood.
Thanks again, folks. Gvillesc, I have only checked out the Parkins Mill area via MLS listings and Google Earth. There do seem to be a number of very nice homes in that area. I couldn't tell from that research what the neighborhood or surrounding area was like of course. We didn't do a drive-through on this trip.
Man, it's hard to cover all that ground, even in a week, and we were hard at it nearly the entire time. We brought our clubs thinking we'd play a round somewhere, but never got it in. We did take one day-trip up to Caesars Head State Park just to take a break. It was an impressive view to say the least...and a fun drive up...and down...the mountain. My wife loved the driving part.
Also, we never got west of the city into Easley, Powdersville. etc. There's only so much you can cover in a week.
well if you've got 9 months and are struggling with the right land/house combo, you could build. eventually i want to build so i look at lots occasionally online, and flgargoyle posted some great info on my thread "looking for land". my parents are renting with a 9 month lease and are about to purchase land and build. they found a house they liked but the lot was very small. my mom actually drew up what she could remember of the floorplan and took it to the builder, and apparently said they could build it in 7 mos. just a thought.
Building....I just can't do that at this point. I have to move my mother-in-law with us as well, and building would require renting so I could oversee the construction. It's just too complicated for me and we'll have to make do with an existing house.
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With your price range, you could just locate in a nice condo downtown or a home on Augusta Road. Did you look in those areas? You could be in a condo at McBee Station less than fifty feet from Publix (nice southeastern chain grocery store), Staples, and other retail/restaurants. 
