Why Did You Move Out Of Maryland.... (Baltimore, Potomac: housing, travel)

[myselfdotcom]

Originally Posted by Mike Jones 1999

My wife and I will be leaving within the next 9 months. We are two professionals (lawyers) and find the cost of living here out of hand (i.e. high housing prices w/ little yard to show for it). It is amazing how much further your $ will go outside of this area. In addition, we want to have children within the next few years and we want them to grow up with a yard to play in....may sound simple to some but this is big for us.

We are relocating to the ATL metro area. It is the south, but ATL has some big city feel to it. In addition, one can still find reasonable housing prices with yards. Also, my wife's family is in the ATL area. I am not bashing people for staying here.... different strokes for different folks. The cost of living here is doing us in!

wtf are you talking about...You probably made more $ than I do (engineer) and you can't survived in Md.....make me wonder

[Mike Jones 1999]

Originally Posted by myselfdotcom

wtf are you talking about...You probably made more $ than I do (engineer) and you can't survived in Md.....make me wonder

...have you looked at housing lately? We refuse to get swept up in this "new age" mortgage game where people have to result to the "interest only" tricks etc... We will pass. We are young people...not even in our 30's. Typical...

[Washingtonian]

Everyone talks about moving to CLT from MD. Good luck finding a job. I know many people from te major employers who have just been laid off in the last two-three weeks. The problem here is that you may get a good job but if you are laid off, you may not find one with a comparable salary.

My current job isn't stable. I don't plan to move immediately but I may not have a choice. I decided to post my resume to see what I could find and how long it would take if i neededed to find something else. I received 4 calls from places in MD/DC within one week. I received no calls from employers in CLT.

Just think long and hard before you move.

[pythagras]

Meh its not so miserable. Md/DC/NoVA area will have for the foreseeable future, despite an economic downturn, great employment flexibility for me and my spouse in our respective fields. I think this is likely true of most people with degrees. Most of my coworkers are competent, which wasn't the case when I lived farther south. The schools are actually better than average in most places. Its not a dream in many ways. MD taxes are annoying, our governor/legislature doesn't get that and other facts of basic economics. Traffic is only a bad thing if you do get a job too far from your home or vice-versa and can be mitigated by proper planning. All-in-all once I take the good with the bad its far better than a lot of other places I could live.

[vanyali]

Originally Posted by Mike Jones 1999

...have you looked at housing lately? We refuse to get swept up in this "new age" mortgage game where people have to result to the "interest only" tricks etc... We will pass. We are young people...not even in our 30's. Typical...

If the guy wants an Atlanta house, then Atlanta is the place to go. It's not my cup of tea, but a lot of people like that sort of thing.

There's plenty of that here in Charlotte, really close into Uptown, if you want to look. Some of it is extremely cute too (Dilworth, Elizabeth, some other neighborhoods are filled with turn-of-the-century Craftsman bungalows, many of them recently re-habbed. The 1950's neighborhoods have bigger yards. And all of the close-in neighborhoods have lots of mature trees. Not much further out, you have more of the brand-new Atlanta-style McMansions).

I hate Charlotte, but I think I would hate Atlanta too, so maybe you'd be OK with it. I strongly suspect that the culture is pretty much the same between here and Atlanta. What an earlier poster wrote about jobs being scarce here is completely true as far as I can tell. There are several law firms, but each has, say, 5 people in its tax group, for example.

I have contact info for some Charlotte-based legal recruiters if you want. Just msg me.

[mom2boys37]

Originally Posted by gracie07

I grew up in Howard County. I lived on a small farm and loved it. We had acres of land to ride our horses, bikes, go-carts, ect. Everyone knew our neighbors, the neighborhood was safe and everyone got alone. Then progress came and turned one of the wooded lots into 250 new houses. The new people didn't like the smell of cows and horses, they didn't like the sound of motorbikes or go-carts. No one knew anyone anymore, and the crime went up considerably. We excaped to Carroll County for a while, but eventually made our way into PA. Although, I have been here for the past 14 years, I am ready to move again. PA is becoming what MD to me used to be, overcrowded, mean people, and way to pricey. It's sad when the place that you call home, doesn't feel like home any longer. I keep moving to the country, and the city keeps following.

Sounds like the Howard County I know and loved..totally not anymore

[mom2boys37]

Originally Posted by vanyali

If the guy wants an Atlanta house, then Atlanta is the place to go. It's not my cup of tea, but a lot of people like that sort of thing.

There's plenty of that here in Charlotte, really close into Uptown, if you want to look. Some of it is extremely cute too (Dilworth, Elizabeth, some other neighborhoods are filled with turn-of-the-century Craftsman bungalows, many of them recently re-habbed. The 1950's neighborhoods have bigger yards. And all of the close-in neighborhoods have lots of mature trees. Not much further out, you have more of the brand-new Atlanta-style McMansions).

I hate Charlotte, but I think I would hate Atlanta too, so maybe you'd be OK with it. I strongly suspect that the culture is pretty much the same between here and Atlanta. What an earlier poster wrote about jobs being scarce here is completely true as far as I can tell. There are several law firms, but each has, say, 5 people in its tax group, for example.

I have contact info for some Charlotte-based legal recruiters if you want. Just msg me.

So how far r u from Hickory?

[vanyali]

Originally Posted by mom2boys37

So how far r u from Hickory?

Not too far, geographically, though I'm sure it's pretty different culturally. Hickory is about an hour outside of Charlotte, to the north. I'm on the south side of Charlotte, so it would probably be a little longer a drive from my house to any place in Hickory.

Not all of NC is like Charlotte. My sister lives in Cary, outside of Raleigh, and culturally Cary seems very different from here (a bit like NoVa without DC).

[mom2boys37]

Originally Posted by vanyali

Not too far, geographically, though I'm sure it's pretty different culturally. Hickory is about an hour outside of Charlotte, to the north. I'm on the south side of Charlotte, so it would probably be a little longer a drive from my house to any place in Hickory.

Not all of NC is like Charlotte. My sister lives in Cary, outside of Raleigh, and culturally Cary seems very different from here (a bit like NoVa without DC).

Yeah I loved it there. My friend is there and she is getting ready to move to Wilmington so now I will have free beach time..lol

[Tom Lennox 70]

North Carolina actually sounds VERY promising. I'm more of a laid-back person and while I believe if doing your job right, I'm not a very anal or demanding customer. I'm going to pharmacy school in september in Baltimore and after 4 years I'll have to decide what kind of pharmacy to go into and also where to live (either a smaller city in Maryland away from the DC metro area....possibly Southern Maryland....or a southern or southwestern metro area excluding Las Vegas and Miami.....due to water problems and hurricanes and Miami's illegals)

I think people up north take their jobs TOO seriosuly sometimes, bosses are too demanding etc. I'm a pharmacy tech right now in Potomac and the customers, many of them have northern accents and they're very pushy and demanding and unreasonable. They yell at the staff for no reason. I cannot imagine living north of the Mason-Dixon Line and working at the pharmacy has really turned me off to anyone from the north.

So in North Carolina, I only have to be slightly better than anyone and I'll look really really good. I think that's a good thing. Honestly I like a relatively laid-back, non-competitive lifestyle. Its better for your heath too. I'm not surprised so many people in Potomac get anti-depressants and high blood pressure medication from the pharmacy.