Attention Anyone Thinking Of Moving To The Triangle. Take It From Someone That Has Lived In A Dying State. (Raleigh: homes, find a job)

[Charlton Dude]

Originally Posted by .-.

What was the cause of your dying state?

High taxes
Anti business environment
Aging infrastructure
High energy costs
Liberal leadership

Originally Posted by .-.

Is it now thriving?

No. I check with family and friends from the area I lived in MA and they tell me it is horrible. They cannot believe how bad it is and they are leaving one by one. They can't take it anymore. Some have moved to NC and love it. When I go back home to visit, it is sad to see what it has become. Towns just about completely shut down. No infrastructure work. Roads and buildings falling apart. No business, no jobs, no hope. It is night and day compared to the Triangle. Although the Triangle has slowed, it is kicking the butt of the area in MA that I lived. God we are so damn lucky to be here now.

[geoff2v]

Just to correct misconceptions here, Massachusetts' state & local tax burden is actually lower than it is in North Carolina. Moreover, the OP's comments are restricted to a reasonably rural part of Massachusetts. Charlton and Cary are not similar communities in similar parts of different states; it's a little like comparing Highlands, NC with Cary. (Nothing against Highlands, personally, just have a friend who grew up there who was glad to leave because it was a bit small for her.) So while it's good that Cary is near several respected institutions of higher education, has lots of sidewalks, and many things to do, so does Boston, the one in Massachusetts.

[Charlton Dude]

Originally Posted by geoff2v

Just to correct misconceptions here, Massachusetts' state & local tax burden is actually lower than it is in North Carolina. Moreover, the OP's comments are restricted to a reasonably rural part of Massachusetts. Charlton and Cary are not similar communities in similar parts of different states; it's a little like comparing Highlands, NC with Cary. (Nothing against Highlands, personally, just have a friend who grew up there who was glad to leave because it was a bit small for her.) So while it's good that Cary is near several respected institutions of higher education, has lots of sidewalks, and many things to do, so does Boston, the one in Massachusetts.

I have no use for Boston either and think it is basically a pit. I am now paying 1/2 the amount in property taxes on a home appraised roughly the same as my last home in MA and yet my current town is kept up so much better and actually has things like parks, greenways, sidewalks, tennis courts. I still can't figure out what I was paying several thousand dollars a year in property taxes for in MA. We had nothing. Then you add in the massive yearly utility savings here and it's no wonder I have so much extra left over in my budget.

[KCfromNC]

Originally Posted by KGRW

According to the NC Employment Security Commission, the unemployment rates as of November 2008 were:
Raleigh 5.2%
Cary 4.3%
Durham 5.4%
Chapel Hill 3.6%

Compared to National unemployment at 7.2% (December data)
NC statewide 7.8%
Charlotte 7%
Gastonia 9.3%
Goldsboro 8.4%

Hence my statement that we are still one of the best areas for employment in the country.

How do you conclude that the Triangle is one of the best areas in the country for employment using data that only covers NC?

Here's a list of MSAs across the country :

Unemployment Rates for Metropolitan Areas

Rank, Area, Unemployment rate
85 Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH Metropolitan NECTA 5.0
[several pages later]
148 Durham, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area 5.8
[another page down or two]
181 Raleigh-Cary, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area 6.1

[I'minformed2]

I'll be darned...my neck of the woods has a lower unemployment rate than the triangle too!

160 Rochester, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area 5.9

[geoff2v]

Originally Posted by Charlton Dude

I have no use for Boston either and think it is basically a pit. I am now paying 1/2 the amount in property taxes on a home appraised roughly the same as my last home in MA and yet my current town is kept up so much better and actually has things like parks, greenways, sidewalks, tennis courts. I still can't figure out what I was paying several thousand dollars a year in property taxes for in MA. We had nothing. Then you add in the massive yearly utility savings here and it's no wonder I have so much extra left over in my budget.

Except that the studies show that the local and state tax burden of NC is higher than that of Massachusetts. And it's easy to see why. If you want to single out one type of tax, then go ahead. If your appraised value is the same, then you certainly are paying less in property tax. But NC income taxes are notably higher than my Mass. income taxes. The sales tax is higher (5% in Boston; 6.75% in Wake). In NC you pay sales tax (2%) on food, which isn't the case in Mass. You pay sales tax on clothing, which isn't the case in Mass. The money for those parks, etc. don't come out of nowhere.

(And really, the sidewalks thing cracks me up. Guess what? Urban areas have more sidewalks than rural ones! Boston has more than Charlton! Cary has more than Highlands! Duluth has more than a small town in the middle of Wyoming. It's not something that's part of this "NC rocks - MA sucks" dichotomy that's been pressed on this thread.)

Update: Oh, and I forgot that if you don't mind a little drive, from many places in Mass. you can go not too far away and purchase anything you want tax free.

[Charlton Dude]

Originally Posted by I'minformed2

I'll be darned...my neck of the woods has a lower unemployment rate than the triangle too!

160 Rochester, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area 5.9

That's not bad at all. It's only 34% higher than Cary. Congratulations.

Michael Walden, Economist, states that Cary is one of the best places in the country to ride out the recession. I think he got that from me.

Cary Is A Great Place To Ride Out Recession - Cary - MyNC.com

"We will not feel the effects of the recession as much here and will rebound faster," Walden said. "This is still a place that people want to move to, so the economic opportunities are going to come back and we're going to see further growth in this local market in years ahead."

"Thus far in the recession, the Raleigh-Cary metro area has actually added jobs," Walden said. "I think that indicates although the recession is being felt here specifically in real estate, this is still a stronger job market than we've seen in other areas."

[Jetta]

Originally Posted by I'minformed2

As far as the person moving from NH .........WHAT?!?! lol

With the exception of having warmer weather I can't for the life if me figure out why someone would consider NC to have a higher QOL than NH!

I live in NH and I would love to relocate to NC simply because it is exceptional expensive to live here in southern NH. I have friends that live in Wilmington and I have visited that area several times. Food, housing and heating are cheaper. A 35 year old, 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath (2400 sq ft) house in my town costs about $380,000, and you can expect to have to fix it up.

I have worked in IT for the last 10 years, and I am interested in the Triangle. I agree that NH is beautiful, and I would certainly miss the beaches and mountains, but if I can provide more for my family, it is worth the trade-off.

[Charlton Dude]

Property Taxes........MA $5,000..........Cary $2,500
Utilities..................MA $5,200..........Cary $1,465
Gasoline.................MA $5,454..........Cary $1,181
Vehicle Expense......MA $7,000..........Cary $3,000

Total cost................MA $22,654........Cary $8,146

Our total annual savings living in Cary is about $14,508 (and this is only part of the savings. I did not even include insurance savings)

We can pay the slightly higher sales tax with that savings and have a ton left over. It it the TOTAL cost of living in MA compared to here that is the big savings. It's the total package. I see people keep getting fixated on a certain tax rate, which isn't even accurate as both states provide a different adjustment to taxable wages.

Trust me everyone, you need to look at the TOTAL cost of living here compared to where you live. We went from just getting by to a really nice lifestyle, simply by moving from MA to Cary. And don't assume you will make less here either. We are not making less than we did in MA.

[geoff2v]

Originally Posted by Charlton Dude

Property Taxes........MA $5,000..........Cary $2,500
Utilities..................MA $5,200..........Cary $1,465
Gasoline.................MA $5,454..........Cary $1,181
Vehicle Expense......MA $7,000..........Cary $3,000

Total cost................MA $22,654........Cary $8,146

Our total annual savings living in Cary is about $14,508 (and this is only part of the savings. I did not even include insurance savings)

We can pay the slightly higher sales tax with that savings and have a ton left over. It it the TOTAL cost of living in MA compared to here that is the big savings. It's the total package. I see people keep getting fixated on a certain tax rate, which isn't even accurate as both states provide a different adjustment to taxable wages.

Trust me everyone, you need to look at the TOTAL cost of living here compared to where you live. We went from just getting by to a really nice lifestyle, simply by moving from MA to Cary. And don't assume you will make less here either. We are not making less than we did in MA.

And that's all fine. But you're comparing apples and oranges by comparing your old rural burb to where you live now. The move from a rural to urban area explains some of those changes. Gas is the same price here as in Massachusetts; your savings of $4,000 are not due to some intrinsic advantage of the southern states over the north. The best explanation for your decreased vehicle expense is that you need to do much less driving now versus your previous residence. Again, those things have nothing to do with advantages of NC over Mass. If you moved to Needham or Newton or Woburn, your vehicle costs would have decreased similarly. (By comparison, speaking personally, my gasoline costs and vehicle expense costs have increased infinitely since I moved from Massachusetts, because I had no gasoline costs, and I had no vehicle expense costs, because I didn't need own any cars. Here, I do.)

I don't doubt your saving money on utilities (although I'm not sure your years of comparison, because costs of utilities were higher everywhere last year and the year before than they are this year, so comparing NC now versus MA two years ago isn't a straight comparison).

Then, there's property tax. I just looked at the Cary & Charlton web sites. The Cary tax rate (FY 2009), plus the Wake tax rate, is 0.864 per $100. So that means you'd pay $2,500 in property tax on a house assessed at approximately $290,000. The Charlton property tax rate is $9.05 per $1,000 (aka 0.905 per $100). So that means you'd pay $5,000 in property tax on a house assessed at about $550,000. (Not counting homestead exemption, if available). You say your home in Cary is "appraised roughly the same as my last home in MA." Perhaps property taxes are double somewhere outside Charlton town limits where you lived, but given Prop 2 1/2, I doubt it. So just how is it that your property taxes are half, on a home assessed the same value, given the closeness of the tax rates.

And, of course, while you say you can pay a slightly higher sales tax and income tax, you don't itemize those added expenses, or any other added expenses you might be incurring down south, so that skews the figures again. (You note that it's not fair to just compare tax rates, which is fine, but then please then let us know if you paid a higher or lower percentage of your pre-tax income in income taxes in NC versus MA. You obviously don't have to, but it makes your comparison look like a cherry-picking exercise.)

Your claim that it's $14,000 cheaper to live in NC versus living in MA appears to be based on flawed comparisons.