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Might be moving and Raliegh in one of the places we are looking into. There are a few things I am unsure of and wondering if you could help me out...Being from Rochester NY I have a few of questions:
1. Are cars taxed there? if so, how high are the taxes?
2. What is the average electric bill in the summer time... with all the A/C used?
3. Are groceries really THAT much more down there?
4. Where would you suggest moving to?
5. Are you happy you made the move? If so, why?
6. How do you cope without basement or attic storage?
7. How low is low when you are talking taxes... I currently pay $7k on a 2000 sqft home...
Might be moving and Raliegh in one of the places we are looking into. There are a few things I am unsure of and wondering if you could help me out...Being from Rochester NY I have a few of questions:
1. Are cars taxed there? if so, how high are the taxes?
2. What is the average electric bill in the summer time... with all the A/C used?
3. Are groceries really THAT much more down there?
4. Where would you suggest moving to?
5. Are you happy you made the move? If so, why?
6. How do you cope without basement or attic storage?
7. How low is low when you are talking taxes... I currently pay $7k on a 2000 sqft home...
Thanks in advance for your answers...
1. Cars are taxed yearly - around 1% - varies by county
2. All depends on size and whether you have a high SEER system. We pay about $120 in the hottest month for a 1200 SF flat.
3. Groceries are taxed 2%. There are discount grocers
4. Move near your work with gas at $3.50 and no public transit worth a darn
5. We moved from New Orleans in 89 but previously lived in Manhattan. A good choice after 20 years. Much lower crime.
6. Get rid of stuff or rent a storage unit. Attics are quite hot so may not be great for storage
7. Taxes will pleasantly surprise you - depends on county
Might be moving and Raliegh in one of the places we are looking into. There are a few things I am unsure of and wondering if you could help me out...Being from Rochester NY I have a few of questions:
1. Are cars taxed there? if so, how high are the taxes?
2. What is the average electric bill in the summer time... with all the A/C used?
3. Are groceries really THAT much more down there?
4. Where would you suggest moving to?
5. Are you happy you made the move? If so, why?
6. How do you cope without basement or attic storage?
7. How low is low when you are talking taxes... I currently pay $7k on a 2000 sqft home...
Thanks in advance for your answers...
Im from western NY (south of buffalo) been here since late sept.
1 - Saturnfan took care of this one for you
2. Im in a 900 sq ft apt and have paid no more than 115 yet - and we keep it as cool or as warm as we want.
3. Not really, shop around and you can find good deals - we are a family of 4 (2 children, 4 years and 1 year) and can keep it under 400 a month usually including our home items too- and we dont eat out often at all. We go to a place similar to sams club but geared much more towards average shoppers and not businesses called BJ's. BJ's Wholesale Club - we also pay attention to flyers for the other local grocery stores, and hit them every so often for deals too.
4. Being from wny you should find many places around here suitable - just depends on your specific tastes. I find cary very suitable, holly springs, raleigh.
5. Very happy - we lived in fl for 3 years and really didnt like it too much its too different. This area feels like home without all the taxes and snow and bad roads, etc, etc.
6. Never really had much storage in ny anyway. You can find homes with adequate storage - some have good sized crawl spaces. Some even have basements.
7. Taxes in wake county are i think appx 1% of the homes value - for example a 100,000 home should cost you roughly 1,000 a year in taxes. Real Estate Search go here and enter in an address of a home in wake county and it will tell you what the taxes are now, and previously on that property.
On it I liked to a nice spreadsheet-like webpage that I've detailed my Rochester VS Raleigh costs which should help you greatly. Note it includes housing prices for the house type I was specifically looking at.
If there's one significant downside to Raleigh is that there's a distinct lack of extremely low cost housing in decent neighborhoods. Here in North Raleigh you can expect to pay no less than $125 for a 1200sq ft house in a reasonable neighborhood. But $140K is more likely the bottom end for really nice quality entry-level housing in desireable neighborhoods.
I wouldn't be concerned about the car tax as the real estate tax is so ridiculously low compared to Rochester it dwarfs everything else. Moderator cut: off topic
Last edited by autumngal; 04-26-2008 at 08:05 PM..
On it I liked to a nice spreadsheet-like webpage that I've detailed my Rochester VS Raleigh costs which should help you greatly. Note it includes housing prices for the house type I was specifically looking at.
If there's one significant downside to Raleigh is that there's a distinct lack of extremely low cost housing in decent neighborhoods. Here in North Raleigh you can expect to pay no less than $125 for a 1200sq ft house in a reasonable neighborhood. But $140K is more likely the bottom end for really nice quality entry-level housing in desireable neighborhoods.
I wouldn't be concerned about the car tax as the real estate tax is so ridiculously low compared to Rochester it dwarfs everything else. Moderator cut: off topic
Thank you so much for the comparisons, I really appreciate that visual. I guess I am not too concerned about the finances after reading that... maybe the lifestyle changes. This move isn't a sure thing... just trying to get a good idea of what we want to do, if anything... we are researching Dallas and Chicago as well... gotta weigh our options.
Property tax: Wake County revalue the property value every 8 years, they will come up with a new number at the first year and will stay for 8 years. 2008 is the beginning year of currrent span, property assessed value increased for most of the properties in Wake county. Property tax is based on tax assessed value of the property and tax rate to be decided based on budget every year. Property tax have 2 parts - County tax and City tax. 2008 property tax is not finalized yet, some cities like Morrisville it is finalized, they reduced the tax rate from 46 cents per $100 value to 44 cents per 100. This trend may continue for other cities and county (We will know by May end). Since property assessed value is increased and tax rate is going to be reduced, the property tax may stay the same or slightly higher than last year for most of the properties in Wake County, few may see it high also. Wake county property tax was 68 cents per $100 value last year. So the maximum property tax for a Morrisville resident is $1.12 per 100 value, for a $200000 home may have to pay property tax at the most $2,240 in 2008. 2000 sq ft home in Morrisville may cost about $250,000, and tax will be at the most $2,800 which is far better than $7000 in NY.
Thank you so much for the comparisons, I really appreciate that visual. I guess I am not too concerned about the finances after reading that... maybe the lifestyle changes. This move isn't a sure thing... just trying to get a good idea of what we want to do, if anything... we are researching Dallas and Chicago as well... gotta weigh our options.
Definately give your move some serious thought. Ive found from talking to many people from the northeast who have moved cross country to either the west or far south, they end up moving back because culture and scenery are so vastly different compared to the NE. Thats exactly why we moved to NC, florida was way too different culturaly and the scenery as well. We'd considered moving here originally but ended up moving to fl because we had some family there - 3 years later we were packing up again to move a little farther north. It was a learning experience but i wished we wouldve given it some more careful thought the first time!
We moved down from Rochester last summer (and loving it, I might add!), and here's how I would compare some of the suburbs to help you with #4:
Cary is comperable to Brighton- it's fairly central, with lots of new shopping plazas and manicured lanscaping. I'm not that familiar with North Raleigh yet, but what I've seen also reminds me of Brighton.
Apex, where we live now, reminds me of Webster or Fairport. It's got some new shopping areas going in, lots of family friendly developments, and a quaint main street area. There are a lot of schools with great reputations.
What I've seen of the Wake Forest area reminds me of Greece or Henrietta. We looked at houses there, but we couldn't find any that weren't directly under massive power lines.
#5: We moved largely because of the lower property taxes, better software engineering job opportunities and overall economy, and the climate. We're finding that with the warmer, drier weather we're outside and being social a lot more, and our quality of life has vastly improved.
#6: Firstly we got rid of a lot of things that we hadn't even looked at for over a year. We also found a house with two huge walk-in closets and used one of them for storage. Our neighbors had some massive shelving put in up high in their garage, and we're looking at doing the same thing. We also have a crawl space, but we're a little afraid of discovering unfriendly residents in there, so we tend to avoid it.
#7: We had a 2200 sq ft home in Rochester. We now have a 2500 sq ft home in Apex, and we're now paying about half of what we were in property taxes.
One thing of note: there is absolutely nothing like Wegman's down here, so we now have to go to 2-3 different stores to get the same selection. But aside from the extra gas it takes, it's not too bad given the milder climate.
Since leaving Buffalo in 1997 we've lived in 4 different cities. THERE IS NO PLACE ANYWHERE LIKE WEGMANS!!!
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Might be moving and Raliegh in one of the places we are looking into. There are a few things I am unsure of and wondering if you could help me out...Being from Rochester NY I have a few of questions:
