Why is everybody relocating to North Carolina? (Raleigh, Cary: transplants, health insurance)

[UrbanDweller]

I have been checking out the this forum for about a month now. And i am trying to figure out why everybody wants to relocate to North Carolina. Some states mentioned are California, Florida, New York, Illinois, etc. What are some of the factor's that have caused this domino effect?

[Nea1]

I really have no idea anymore. We left.

[rox011]

Cost of living. We live in Miami Fl and taxes and isurance rates are really high. Most people who bought their homes before Miami became expensive can pay a house off in N. and S. Carolina and pay over 50% less in taxes and insurance rates. Not to mention insurance rate in our vehicle also

[TinaNY]

I live on Long Island and my husband retired. These are the reasons we are relocating.

1. We want to downsize to less property, but have a newer home. We picked Wake Forest because we found a beautiful 3 year old home in Heritage with a great view, but just enough property for my husband to garden without killing himself. In order to accomplish this on Long Island we would still have to continue to carry a mortgage with very high taxes and money is tight with him retiring.

2. We are ready for a milder winter, but a place that still has four seasons.

we visited Wake Forest and really like it a lot. The community is designed in a way that there is a lot of green. It is very pretty. Also the downtown of Wake Forest is very quaint and I like the flavor of the town (art galleries, yoga studio, restaurants). We were visiting last week and attended the Art Fair in the town. It was nice.

I am looking forward to our relocation in December. I have been watching the board for a few weeks and have picked up many useful pieces of information. However, I have also heard some very bitter negative comments about NC and people's desires to relocate. I can undestand some of the frustration people who have lived in NC awhile are feeling with the traffic increasing and the increase in development. This happened here on Long Island as well. The area I am in now has gotten very congested and we deal with overdevelopment and heavy traffic.

I realize I am not moving to "Paradise" by relocating to NC. However as someone else on the board said previously much of our happiness is what we make of what we have and that people have different needs as to what they are looking for in a place.

I will have a beautiful home with my immediate family with me as well as good friends who are moving also. I will have milder winters and a newer home with less work for my husband to have to deal with. I will live in a beautiful section of the state in a nice town with great restaurants and good shopping. I am happy with my choice.

This is why I am moving to NC

[ceili723]

I've lived and travelled around quite a bit, and picked the Triangle as the place for my husband and I to raise our family. Our kids are very young, so we have no first hand experience with the schools, but this sums up why we made our choice (we were living in CT and were choosing Triangle, Boston (where I'm from) or Santa Clara CA area:

1. great weather (the best I've experienced since living in the Bay area). Mild weather but kick-ass foliage and long springs
2. great colleges and great college sports scene
3. lots of educated people
4. unbelievable parks and playgrounds. Overall, fantastic public facilities
5. great jobs at salaries not MUCH less than other places
6. we live in Cary and our commute to either Raleigh, RTP, or the airport is 20 min or less
7. amazing what $300K can buy- I'm a stay-at-home mom, and have plenty of company here. In CT, I was the only mom around during the day
8. low taxes
9. nice people and lots of transplants. There's a lot of thirtysomething professionals with kids who have moved here from away- people are friendly and a lot of them aren't settled or provincial, they want to meet new people and try new things
10. for extended families, the Triangle is a great place for public schools, great colleges, great jobs, and a viable retirement scene... something for all ages!
11. for us and our 3 kids the clincher was that it's halfway between my parents in MA and my husband's in central FL... 12 hour drive each way

[fuquaybradley]

Exciting career change and to settle down and raise a family. Oh yeah, and because it afforded me a motorboat. I've always wanted one, haha!

[PDXmom]

Originally Posted by ceili723

9. nice people and lots of transplants. There's a lot of thirtysomething professionals with kids who have moved here from away- people are friendly and a lot of them aren't settled or provincial, they want to meet new people and try new things

So good to hear to this! I worry about starting over and creating a new community for my family. But it sounds like so many others will also be searching for new friends/community. Hopefully this will help with some of the emotional stress.

[MrTudo]

Originally Posted by rox011

Cost of living. We live in Miami Fl and taxes and isurance rates are really high. Most people who bought their homes before Miami became expensive can pay a house off in N. and S. Carolina and pay over 50% less in taxes and insurance rates. Not to mention insurance rate in our vehicle also

While it may and I put the emphasis on the word may, be cheaper to buy a house in NC it's not cheaper to live there.

When we factored our health insurance costs, NC State Income Tax which would suck almost 10K a year out of us, we quickly found that NC is no bargain and actually the cost of living is HIGHER than S Fla.

Now if you like the mountains etc say so. But stop with the nonsense about the lower cost of living.

[I LOVE NORTH CAROLINA]

Oh I know it will cost more to live there and we'll be giving up a lot but it will be
worth it to us to live in western N.C. because of the mountains, and the cooler summers and the waterfalls and all the beauty of the land. I have to admit through we are starting to look at eastern Tenn because of the taxes.

[Carolina_native]

North Carolina is out there now like Florida used to be.

If people really want lower taxes and lower costs of living, move to Mississippi. But like as been posted before, NC is a safe bet for most people. Ive seen people talk about wanting a slower paced life and friendlier people, but they are only interested in areas that have an obviously high transplant ratio .

There is a thread on here with people complaining about what they miss about living here and "if we only had these things here in NC life would be great".