Relocating to Raleigh from Boston, help! (Charlotte, Durham: lease, condo, mortgage)

[wyllie]

My husband and I are looking to move to the area next summer and we are making our first visit in Sept. We are a young couple, he in finance and I'm a teacher and we're looking for a modest condo/house in a decent area, looking to spend 215,000 max.

I've been reading and searching but there is only so much you can gather from pictures and such. I'm looking to find out which towns we should visit... how do Raleigh, Durham, Clayton, Garner, Cary, Zebulan, Wake Forest, etc... stack up to eachother? Which are in a good price range, good neighborhood, not too far, good for young couples?

Any suggestions are welcomed and I thank you in advance!

Also, is there a job market for money management?

[goat1of2]

I know that Charlotte is considered the banking center of North Carolina--maybe even of the Southeast. Although, with Wachovia in the trouble it's in, perhaps not so much anymore. The advice that you will get from this forum will be along the lines of: get a job first, try to find a place that's a nice drive to work (however you define "nice"), and then buy. Each town has good/bad areas and good/bad points so it is impossible to generalize.

For a first visit, house-hunting is probably way too premature since you don't know where you'll be working! As a Durham resident, I hate to admit it, but Raleigh is the center of the universe here. Visit the downtown area and the museums. Duke University in Durham has some lovely gardens and a nice art museum as well. Maybe be tourists first BEFORE you start looking at houses! Get a tourist's guidebook to the area, try different restaurants, all that stuff.

[ferrickhead28]

Wow, each town you mentioned are so different in so man ways...your price range is however, easy to find in each one. I bought a 2800 sq ft home in Clayton for under that price. My friend bought a 1400 sq ft townhome in Cary for around that price. Its different across the board.

What kind of things do you want from your town/city? Give us more info, we can help!

[MAtoNC!]

Start with this : http://www.city-data.com/forum/ralei...cary-vs-2.html

[JimmyO]

Unless you're deadset on buying, I would consider renting for the first year or so until you learn the area and figure out on your own where you want to live.

I used to live in Boston myself, and was pleasantly surprised at how renter-friendly this town is. My wife and I got ourselves into a great townhouse complex where we signed a year lease and then went month-to-month at the end of the year. We only need to give 30 days notice to get out of our townhouse. We're in the process of buying right now, and though we were "throwing money away" while renting, it gave us time to save up for a house and figure out exactly where we wanted to live.

In my opinion, renting isn't a waste as long as it's cheaper than a mortgage payment and gives you a chance to learn a city and not be tied down.

[geoff2v]

Originally Posted by JimmyO

Unless you're deadset on buying, I would consider renting for the first year or so until you learn the area and figure out on your own where you want to live.

I used to live in Boston myself, and was pleasantly surprised at how renter-friendly this town is. My wife and I got ourselves into a great townhouse complex where we signed a year lease and then went month-to-month at the end of the year. We only need to give 30 days notice to get out of our townhouse. We're in the process of buying right now, and though we were "throwing money away" while renting, it gave us time to save up for a house and figure out exactly where we wanted to live.

In my opinion, renting isn't a waste as long as it's cheaper than a mortgage payment and gives you a chance to learn a city and not be tied down.

I'll go further and say that renting isn't a waste even if it costs more than a mortgage. There are lots of benefits to renting, particularly when you're moving into a new area and don't know where you want to live. When I moved to Boston, we rented for a couple of years because we had no idea about any of the neighborhoods; we eventually purchased after we decided where we wanted to live.

[VickiR]

Originally Posted by JimmyO

Unless you're deadset on buying, I would consider renting for the first year or so until you learn the area and figure out on your own where you want to live.

I used to live in Boston myself, and was pleasantly surprised at how renter-friendly this town is. My wife and I got ourselves into a great townhouse complex where we signed a year lease and then went month-to-month at the end of the year. We only need to give 30 days notice to get out of our townhouse. We're in the process of buying right now, and though we were "throwing money away" while renting, it gave us time to save up for a house and figure out exactly where we wanted to live.

In my opinion, renting isn't a waste as long as it's cheaper than a mortgage payment and gives you a chance to learn a city and not be tied down.

I do agree that renting first is a good alternative for some. For some, it means moving the kids from school again so alot of families with kids prefer to do as much research as they can and then buy. And for those families that their employer pays to relocate them, the employer may not pay to move them twice.

There is alot of work that you can do before you come down so that you can narrow down the areas that you would be happy living in.

Vicki