Totally Freaked About Moving to Raleigh! (Durham, Cary: property taxes, income, work)

[JDUB]

Originally Posted by brenda9417

We are relocating to Raleigh from Austin (the mecca of diversity, wierdness, hightech and live music). We visited Raleigh a couple of weeks back, and came back home in tears. What we saw was, to say the least, shocking. Overpriced homes with beaters in the driveway (a sign of people who work to simply pay the house payment), No greenbelts or hike and bike trails in your back yard (apparently you have to go to a park to get that), and your homeless people were actually homeless! Where's the love? Other people were walking down the streets--not for exercise, but because they didn't have a ride. We saw a few cyclists in Hillsborough and Pittsboro (but that was the only sign of outdoor exercise we witnessed). We saw one sad little farmer's market, but no artists kiosks or street musicians. Where is the culture? If one more person points us in the direction of the museums I think I'll scream! We were told to go to Durham for live music (We drove through Durham and kept on driving! I drive a Jaguar and figured the cat wouldn't be on the hood when I came back out.) We were then told to go to Chapel Hill. That's an awfully small town with a few quaint shops and restaruants, but nothing to write home about! Is this what we have to look forward to? Overpriced homes, driving out of town or having to fight the college students to hear a good band, museums, nothing to do but work to pay the mortgage? Please tell us it isn't so!

PRETTY SIMPLE DONT GO!!!! Apparently AUSTIN IS THE PLACE TO BE!!

[jfre81]

Austin and Raleigh are both in danger of the same thing - everyone else trying to be there and turning it into what everybody was trying to get away from in the first place.

Actually....that said, Austin needs one fewer car on its freeways. Move to Raleigh.

[saturnfan]

We've lived in NY, NJ, CA, MO, KS, LA before moving to Raleigh in 1989.

It's great here and we intend to stay. Just got back from a great visit to Ben & jerry's in the new North Hills. Really great seeing the kids playing and people coming by with their greyhound dogs.

We live modestly in a 2BR apt which fully meets our needs.

We love Raleigh, NC!

[ricardocobos]

sounds like a lib who is getting a transfer he doesnt want so he can keep making his jag payments. too bad..

I was just in raleigh, had a good look around, and while I couldn't stand the subs, for the same reason he pointed out, found some fabulous turn of the century homes inside the 440 that werejust spectacular. [i] will confess I was dismayed at the houses I saw in the burbs. pretty and shiny but built like S_ _ T! I am surprised you found the housing expensive coming from Austin which in the past decade has seena surge in real estate prices, but maybe they corrected themselves after the dot.com bust.

I found a farmers market in Cary that was just about the biggest I had ever seen. I witnessed one of the best out door free movies downtown Raleigh playing of all movies.. Moulin Rouge. And I know about movies festivals, seeing as I live in Traverse City home to the third annual Traverse City Film Festival, expected this year to surpass the Sundance FIlm FEstival. sadly thank you Michael Moore (Excuse me while I wipe the vomit from my lips).

As for not witnessing any outdoor activity, I was stunned at what I considered fools participating in outdoor sports. I was there the first week in July. The heat was oppressive (I'm from Michigan) it was 99 and 90 if you know what I mean. I saw people palying golf at 3 pm - I swear I left my car on while i was looking at houses just because I didnt want to get back into a hot car.

I had the finest calimari ever at the Cardinal Club on the 28th floor of the soon to no longer be the tallest bldg in Raleigh (the Wachovia bank bldg) and I have been priveledged to travel the world and have the stamps in my passport to prove it.

As for diversity, I had kabuke style Japanese for lunch in Cary and witnessed the oweer, inside of a span of one conversation speak three languages fluently with three different people. How cool is that? And as for Austin being the Mecca of diversity I was certain that San Fransisco had the patent pending on that one. The last time I checked, Austin is still in Texas, regardless of whatever lies the recruiter told you to get you there, and Texas doesnt come much more conservative, after all it did in fact elect GW as governor!

Overall - it is an area that has boomed in the past 10 years and they are deperatly trying to catch up - I look forward to seeing it agian soon.

[IdaClaire]

I loved the little dig about the "beater" cars in front of "overpriced" homes. Call me silly, but I always have preferred to sink the maximum amount of money I can afford in an investment that will appreciate, such as a home, and a minimum amount of money into an investment that does nothing but depreciate from the moment you purchase it. Yes, I tend to buy cars that are a few years old and non-glamorous, albeit highly rated by Consumer Reports. We also sack away as much money as we can into our 401Ks and college savings for our daughter, along with our fast appreciating, practical but non-glamorous home.

Silly me! I thought I was being responsible! I should be using our college money for a Jaguar that I could use to quickly dodge all those annoying homeless people.

I call troll. I used to work at NCSU, and worked pretty closely with several folks in Plant Path, and I've never met anyone over there with that kind of attitude. Plus, PhD students usually spend all their time in labs anyway and don't seem to care much where they spend a couple of years while they invest in their future.

[saturnfan]

What you gotta remember is that government will exact their pound of flesh in one way or another.

So TX has no state income tax. They bend you over in property taxes.

Now, NY is different. They bend you over in income tax and property tax. Ouch!

NC for me.

[techoncall]

Your words to my mouth exactly,thats the experience we had when we visited the area.
But i got slammed on these boards tremendously for replying anything negative.
My advice move on, i see money mag no longer has Cary on the list anymore,now they have the rundown town of Apex.
what a joke..
As far as housing,jobs and quality of life,look elsewhere.
The whole area is a hyped up joke!

[saturnfan]

Depends on where you're coming from and what you want out of a community.

Raleigh has a lot of churches and got us back to Jesus after over 20 years disillusioned by churches that weren't meaningful. Our kids got a great education here including college.

Coming from New Orleans, Raieigh was like Heaven.

[IdaClaire]

Originally Posted by techoncall

As far as housing,jobs and quality of life,look elsewhere.
The whole area is a hyped up joke!

I'm so sorry you had such a negative experience in the Triangle area. I guess I've been blessed to have positive feelings about just about everywhere I have ever lived or visited. My husband and I have jobs we love, a house we adore, and a large social network we've managed to acquire in the 10-11 years we've lived in the area. Our quality of life is higher here than anywhere we've lived and we've never been out of work.

I'm pretty sure that life and happiness is what you make of it. I could be happy just about anywhere that we could be safe and have reasonable shelter as long as I have my family, and one can make friends anywhere. The Triangle area is not perfect by any means; I once longed to live in more urban but outdoorsy regions like Portland or Seattle, and we do not have the culture of New York and San Francisco. That said, I'm fairly certain that if someone can't be reasonably happy here, the problem probably lies within.

[MrsBTA]

Originally Posted by techoncall

i see money mag no longer has Cary on the list anymore,now they have the rundown town of Apex.

Sigh, here we go again... Cary did not get "kicked off" the list. Money Mag decided to change their focus this year to much smaller towns (population less than 50,000). You won't find ANY of the previous winners on this year's list.

This was discussed in a previous thread:
Money Mags. new rankings

I understand the Triangle isn't for everyone, and I'm not going to argue that at all. Just wanted to set the facts straight