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Thread summary:

Son to be married southern California couple moving to North Carolina, seeking information on job market, taxes, cost of living, safety, crime rates, race relations, Black community

 
Old 06-01-2008, 06:42 AM
 
3 posts, read 6,360 times
Reputation: 10

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Greeting All,

I am a Southern California girl who's about to be married this summer. My soon to be husband and i have our sites set on settling down in North Carolina, but neither of us have ever been. Before we take the trip to check out the place I would love to get some info from North Carolina residents themselves. Could you please tell me. any info you know about the following

1) Jobs (Is the job market as great as people say) i have the aspiration of working for the state and/or on of the universities. Does anyone know if the application process is difficult. I have a couple of college degrees and a couple of years of management experience.

2) Houses ( Are they as affordable as all the websites say?) And what are the good areas for a couple starting out to look at. our budget is 160k max. I would love to live somewhere near a university as i fully intend to find a job at one of the universities in the area.

3) Taxes ( what are the taxes like)

4) Cost of living (Any one have any averages)

5) Safety ( We have every intention of starting a family in a couple of years and would like to know if it's a safe place to raise children.

6) Race Relations (Are there racial wars going on there. I have fears of the south as being a discriminating place.)

7) The Black community ( I saw an article about NC holding 2 spots on the list of top 10 cities for black to live. Can anyone tell me the pros and cons of being black in north carol. I am a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and I know that there is a large of chapters in the state.

8) And lastly the county factor. I'm a major city girl never been to the south. can you tell me what's you're ratio of county vs. city. I would ideally like a good 75% county 25%


I know this list pretty long but trust me any info you could provide me would helps us greatly in our decision making.


Thank you all very much for taking the time out to read this post.

I hope ot hear from you soon.
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Old 06-01-2008, 08:01 AM
 
4,606 posts, read 7,675,453 times
Reputation: 5242
North Carolina is a big state. Are you looking at any particular area? Such as the mountains, coast or somewhere
in between? If you can narrow down the areas you will find the members can be more beneficial with the help they can give you.

The search tool can also help with getting a feel of the areas here in NC with previous thread discussions.
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Old 06-01-2008, 08:45 AM
 
Location: In a house
21,956 posts, read 24,245,882 times
Reputation: 15030
One important thing to remember here and many have posted in other threads concerning this: The jobs are here but so are the people looking for those jobs! The competition is fierce! Be ready to take a while to land a good job or better yet, have it before you move.
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Old 06-01-2008, 02:32 PM
 
Location: Up above the world so high!
45,218 posts, read 100,458,754 times
Reputation: 40198
Quote:
Originally Posted by tetoniadoss View Post
Greeting All,

I am a Southern California girl who's about to be married this summer. My soon to be husband and i have our sites set on settling down in North Carolina, but neither of us have ever been. Before we take the trip to check out the place I would love to get some info from North Carolina residents themselves. Could you please tell me. any info you know about the following

1) Jobs (Is the job market as great as people say) i have the aspiration of working for the state and/or on of the universities. Does anyone know if the application process is difficult. I have a couple of college degrees and a couple of years of management experience.

2) Houses ( Are they as affordable as all the websites say?) And what are the good areas for a couple starting out to look at. our budget is 160k max. I would love to live somewhere near a university as i fully intend to find a job at one of the universities in the area.

3) Taxes ( what are the taxes like)

4) Cost of living (Any one have any averages)

5) Safety ( We have every intention of starting a family in a couple of years and would like to know if it's a safe place to raise children.

6) Race Relations (Are there racial wars going on there. I have fears of the south as being a discriminating place.)

7) The Black community ( I saw an article about NC holding 2 spots on the list of top 10 cities for black to live. Can anyone tell me the pros and cons of being black in north carol. I am a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and I know that there is a large of chapters in the state.

8) And lastly the county factor. I'm a major city girl never been to the south. can you tell me what's you're ratio of county vs. city. I would ideally like a good 75% county 25%


I know this list pretty long but trust me any info you could provide me would helps us greatly in our decision making.


Thank you all very much for taking the time out to read this post.

I hope ot hear from you soon.

It really continues to amaze me when I read that people have heard that the NC job market is "great". Sure, there are great jobs to be found here, but there are many qualified applicants for every one job - the competition is intense sometimes! Maybe ya'll haven't heard just how many people are continually relocating here? We are one of the top destinations to relocate to in the country right now. So, here is the first piece of advice I will give, and that you will see often written by other regulars, don't move here without first securing a job!

I am not black so I cannot really speak to how black people living here feel. However, from all signs and appearances educated young black professionals find a lot to like about living in either Charlotte or the Raleigh area. As for us natives or long-timers here, we really don't care what color our new neighbors are. We care that they are educated, willing to be involved in the community and good neighbors themselves
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Old 06-01-2008, 08:55 PM
 
Location: Blue Ridge Mountains
451 posts, read 1,562,020 times
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Default Cali Girl Moving to N.C.

Seems like a lot of the young college educated folks are looking into the Research Triangle Area. This would be Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. My son is a senior in computer science at Appalachian State and he has already mentioned this area after he gets his masters. Plus if you are interested in working in the government, Raleigh is the capitol. I agree with the other post. Check the area out and try to secure a job before you move. My friend's daughter just got her law degree and already has a masters in business. She graduated with honors. She has been trying to find a job for several months with no luck. I'm sure things are a little tight right now but will surely loosen up soon. Good Luck
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Old 06-02-2008, 06:27 AM
 
Location: Heading Northwest In Nevada
8,893 posts, read 20,299,691 times
Reputation: 5635
One thing you will have here that you don't have there.......high HUMIDITY and thunderstorms with the possibility of hail and a tornado. This isn't Oklahoma, but it can/does happen here, just depending on where you live. And, you could very well get some snow here in the winter. Generally it won't be much, but you could see some and may have to drive in it. We use to live in Costa Mesa, Calif and the weather here IS different. Just be ready for a change in the weather compared to what you are use to!!
Good Luck
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Old 06-09-2008, 04:16 PM
 
Location: Swansboro
79 posts, read 312,673 times
Reputation: 51
I've you're hoping to get involved in the university system then definitely the RTP area is where you need to go. Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, and NCSU are all in this area as well as community colleges and some private colleges. This is probably where the job market is best also.
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Old 06-10-2008, 07:50 AM
 
4,139 posts, read 11,459,934 times
Reputation: 1959
I moved here from SoCal. Believe me, SoCal does not have it all together with race relations at all, so it never ceases to amaze me when people from CA think NC would be worse. It is far better.....we don't have riots or police shootings or any of the stuff you hear on the CA news about race issues. Sure, there are those who will never accept anyone of a different race, but NC doesn't have the corner market on that sort of bigotry.

It depends on what kind of industry you are in as to how good the job market is. I personally wouldn't move here without a job.

Dawn
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Old 07-05-2008, 03:14 PM
 
2 posts, read 5,054 times
Reputation: 10
Hi!
I am a 24 year old female, recently married, and recently relocated to NC. I am originally from Philadelphia, and am a major city girl myself. We bought a house for $100,000 - it has 3 beds, 2.5 baths, and 1.5 acres of land. I am 15-20 minutes from Target and shopping in Mooresville, NC, and less than an hour outside of Charlotte and Greesnboro, where I can get about anything I want (looove Northlake Mall). Our taxes are far lower than they would have been in Philly; about $600 for the year. (I live in Sherrills Ford, outside of Charlotte, kinda)
I made sure to find a job in marketing before we relocated; my husband used to work for the Sherriff's Office in Trenton, NJ...it's a bit more difficult for him to find work, but there are plenty of openings, depending on what you want to do.
I can't tell you very much about the race relations or the black community, as I am white, only to say the the black community I have come across in the Charlotte area seems to be fairly large and friendly.

I would recommend that you take a nice, long (2 week) trip down here and check out some areas where you think you'd like to live. That's what we did, and once we had a sense of where we wanted to live, then I could look for jobs and houses in that area.
It's worked for us!

PS. I am looking for female friends in the area that I can get together with when my husband works nights at his current job. Feel free to contact me if you have a great group of girlfriends I can join!
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