Relocation Question (Raleigh, Durham: apartment, rent, house)

[wigg88]

I am might be moving to Raleigh in the next two months and have read several posts but not finding exactly what I'm looking for. I live in West Palm but grew up in Southwest VA northeast TN so comfortable with both traffic and with long drive times to get to work so not real concerned with distance to work. I am looking for the best locations to start looking and can narrow it down from there. I'm sort of looking to start a free for all with what is the best area and why. Open to anywhere in the triangle.

Key Quality's
Great Schools have a 4 year old and 7 year old so pre-school up
Convenient shopping (i.e. target, costco, sams, grocery and such with in 15 min, malls don't matter)

Considerations
initially renting house or larger appartment sub 2000 mo
Purchase latter sup 400,000
I'm not really sure what my money will rent looking for at least 1800sf 3 bedroom don't really care if apartment or single family house.
Like new construction and very well kept homes less than 20 years old.

Thanks

[ninsfa]

in wake county(raleigh) you'll be best looking at southwest area(cary, morrisville) or possibly northeast, (wake forest). both areas have newer neighborhoods and above avg schools, very suburban lifestyle.

[fester600]

carroll county va? I went to JMU and had several friends from there. Sadly we have not kept in touch some 15 years later.

At any rate, I am not sure if these boards are still bashing Durham, but we love SW Durham right around the Soutpoint Mall.

Our daughter is only 1, so we really have only looked into elementary schools, but both Creekside (traditional) and Peasontown (year round) are great schools.

As a new father, I am not really even sure when middle school happens. :-) I guess time will start to fly here soon...