family of 3 looking to move to NC from MA (Charlotte: fit in, condos)

[silvas2004]

Hi all!
We are a young(27 & 30) family of 3 who are sick and tired of MA. We have crazy laws, and crazy taxes and are tired of it all. My husband is an avid hunter, and we are conservatives (i know like the only ones in ma LOL!) so we sort of don't fit in here anymore. We visited NC 2 years ago and loved it. We picked this area for relocating to because:
-we wanted to still be able to drive back to MA to visit
-we wanted to stay near the ocean
-we wanted a warmer climate
-we wanted to live somewhere that allows me to stay home with our baby
-and we love the southern way of life.

My question is, where would be the best area to move to? My husband works in information systems for a hospital and has a position lined up he could take at any time working from home making the same salary he makes now (i.e. he could live anywhere in the country). I work in biotech now, and may be able to transfer if i needed to work, but our main goal is to be able to afford for me to stay home until our child and future children can go to school full time. We want a safe small town feel, with a good school system, and a home with decent land ( at least an acre or more). A development would pretty much be out of the question unless the houses were not on top of each other.
So what area would you guys recommend?
Thanks for any info!

[trese]

There are several good medical centers/hospitals, etc... in NC.

The Research Triangle Park (Raleigh/Durham) would be good. About 2 hrs to the coast.

The triad area (Winston-Salem/Greensboro/High Point) would be good because of WFU/Baptist Hospital. About 4 hrs to the coast.

There may be something close to Charlotte area, I'm not sure but that is a larger metro area so higher costs, taxes, more crime, etc...

I live in the Triad and love it!!

Good luck in your decision!

[lovebrentwood]

A small rural town sounds perfect for you. So the Triangle area might not be a good fit.

[NCgirl]

Originally Posted by silvas2004

Hi all!
We are a young(27 & 30) family of 3 who are sick and tired of MA. We have crazy laws, and crazy taxes and are tired of it all. My husband is an avid hunter, and we are conservatives (i know like the only ones in ma LOL!) so we sort of don't fit in here anymore. We visited NC 2 years ago and loved it. We picked this area for relocating to because:
-we wanted to still be able to drive back to MA to visit
-we wanted to stay near the ocean
-we wanted a warmer climate
-we wanted to live somewhere that allows me to stay home with our baby
-and we love the southern way of life.

My question is, where would be the best area to move to? My husband works in information systems for a hospital and has a position lined up he could take at any time working from home making the same salary he makes now (i.e. he could live anywhere in the country). I work in biotech now, and may be able to transfer if i needed to work, but our main goal is to be able to afford for me to stay home until our child and future children can go to school full time. We want a safe small town feel, with a good school system, and a home with decent land ( at least an acre or more). A development would pretty much be out of the question unless the houses were not on top of each other.
So what area would you guys recommend?
Thanks for any info!

You would be 3+ hours to the ocean but Cabarrus county may be a good fit. It's right outside of Charlotte. There are several nice hospitals in the area and in surrounding counties (Mecklenburg, Rowan, Iredell). In a small town called Kannapolis there is the NC Research Campus.

a world class research hub where collaborative science will lead the charge for great discoveries in nutrition, health and biotechnology research.

Cabarrus County
City of Kannapolis

[al_roethlisberger]

As mentioned above, the Triangle/Triad have a lot of biotech and IT, so that might be a good area for you to base out of. Charlotte also has a large biotech campus that was just built to its north, although I forget exactly where. I also think Charlotte may be a bit more "conservative" given the heavy banking industry there, so that may be something you are interested in as well. The Chapel Hill/Carborro area is pretty "liberal", and the Triangle is a mix. But these are of course generalizations.

But if you like the Triangle/Triad area, but you are looking for land, open space, affordability, and more of a small/mid sized town feel, you might consider Sanford.

We are almost smack-dab in the middle of the state, and practically equidistant from Greensboro, Raleigh/Durham/Cary, and Fayetteville. So we have easy ~30min access to any of those metro areas, and are equally 2-3 hours from beach or mountains.

Sanford has everything you need, being a mid-sized city of around 30k population, but still has a mayor that will wave to you and probably know you by name. And if there is something you "want" that Sanford doesn't have, again, the larger cities are just 30 minutes away.

We moved here, by way of a quick 1yr in Cary, from San Jose CA and have been very pleased. In the short 3 years we've been here, we've made more friends and gotten more involved in local government, community, etc than we were able to during a decade in the "big city". It really seems like you can make a difference and see progress in these smaller communities.

Being relatively small, Sanford has a variety of housing, everything from rural farms, historic housing, new condos, to golf/gated communities... all within minutes of each other.

City of Sanford, North Carolina | Official Government Website

Live Well Centered.

Here are some maps showing Sanford's relative position in the state:

Live Well Centered.

Good luck!
Al