Henderson NC (Raleigh, Durham, Cary: middle-class, best neighborhood, for sale)

[newyorker62]

I am planning on moving to the triangle area and hopefully will be working at Duke Medical Center. I want to know if anyone has any information about Henderson NC. There are a lot of nice affordable homes there and seems that it would be a great place for retirement. Does anyone know how the commute would be to Durham? I have searched the threads and can find absolutely no information on Henderson. Is it a "NO NO DON"T GO" area?

Thanks

[Desdemona123]

Originally Posted by newyorker62

I am planning on moving to the triangle area and hopefully will be working at Duke Medical Center. I want to know if anyone has any information about Henderson NC. There are a lot of nice affordable homes there and seems that it would be a great place for retirement. Does anyone know how the commute would be to Durham? I have searched the threads and can find absolutely no information on Henderson. Is it a "NO NO DON"T GO" area?

Thanks

Henderson has some real issues with crime.....and....well...... there is a reason why things are so cheap there. It's not an overly desirable town. Heck, the production staff at my old job that lived in Henderson....even for generations, didn't like Henderson!

There is some new businesses that are moving into the area, so maybe it will change, but for now....even thought the commute wouldn't be that bad (straight down 85) ....There are other options if you want to stick to areas north of Durham.

Have you looked at Oxford? It's a bit better then Henderson.

[newyorker62]

Thank you for your reply. It seems that many small towns have a crime problem. I am checking the crime rates of potential cities at Sperling's Best Places .com. The city of Durham has some of the highest crime rates in the area so I was trying to avoid living in Durham, but not have to do a long commute. I actually lived in Durham for 22 years, but I left in 1980 and I understand that the entire area has changed a lot since then. I am trying to make a decision before the end of July so I am spending a lot of time here searching. In reality, there is no perfect place to live and crime and traffic problems are a fact of life most places nowadays.

[Desdemona123]

Originally Posted by newyorker62

Thank you for your reply. It seems that many small towns have a crime problem. I am checking the crime rates of potential cities at Sperling's Best Places .com. The city of Durham has some of the highest crime rates in the area so I was trying to avoid living in Durham, but not have to do a long commute. I actually lived in Durham for 22 years, but I left in 1980 and I understand that the entire area has changed a lot since then. I am trying to make a decision before the end of July so I am spending a lot of time here searching. In reality, there is no perfect place to live and crime and traffic problems are a fact of life most places nowadays.

I am sure Durham has changed since you left! However, I would live in Durham before Henderson. (BullCityRaising is going to fall over in faint at my saying that! LOL!)

There are nice areas of Durham that are slowly coming around, there are plenty of areas in Durham I wouldn't wonder into either....so there you go.

Are you going to get a chance to come visit before you have to make any sort of decision?

[Bull City Rising]

Originally Posted by newyorker62

Thank you for your reply. It seems that many small towns have a crime problem. I am checking the crime rates of potential cities at Sperling's Best Places .com. The city of Durham has some of the highest crime rates in the area so I was trying to avoid living in Durham, but not have to do a long commute. I actually lived in Durham for 22 years, but I left in 1980 and I understand that the entire area has changed a lot since then. I am trying to make a decision before the end of July so I am spending a lot of time here searching. In reality, there is no perfect place to live and crime and traffic problems are a fact of life most places nowadays.

Hi NewYorker (after sniffing the smelling salts ...

If you haven't been here in 25 years, you should definitely take a look at the place; you wouldn't recognize it probably! The American Tobacco factory downtown has closed, and now has high-end office spaces, a couple of corporate HQs, a Starbucks, and luxury condos going in. How's that for change?

In all seriousness, the I-40 corridor as you know did not exist, and there's a whole "Durham" now south of the old South Square Mall (which is now a SuperTarget/Sam's Club) that has a number of middle-class and high-end developments.

You might also check out northern Durham County, along the Cole Mill Rd or Guess Rd corridors, which has a number of homes and developments nestled among the woods and the Eno. If you're curious, Bahama and Rougemont haven't changed a bit and could also be good choices. Also, Hillsborough/Mebane have grown quite a bit since you were here and are also worth a look.

[newyorker62]

To bull City Rising and Desdemona123, Thanks for the info. It is so nice of you guys to catch me up with what's going on there. I actually visited the last time in 1997, but I hear it's even changed since then. I will come down and spend a few days looking over the entire area before I make a decision. I am a bit concerned since one poster wrote that most employers don't want to consider out of town applicants since there are so many who live in the area looking for work. I don't know if this would apply to medical research. I am going to go ahead and send some resumes to Duke and see if I get any responses. If there is anyone on the board who knows anything about the medical research community and their hiring preferences, please let me know. Thanks--Newyorker62

[jwduke]

It all depends on where you live in the city. Live in the country area should do you well.

[SouthernFarmer]

I know this thread is old, but I believe that what I have to say is important to anyone who might be scanning these forums for info on Henderson, N.C.

First off, realize that we're talking about the city of Henderson in Vance County, which is on the NC/VA border, north and slightly east of the Raleigh/Durham "Triangle" area. Some people confuse this with Hendersonville, a beautiful city in Henderson County out in the mountains of Western NC by Asheville. Hendersonville in Henderson County is a nice place, Henderson in Vance County is NOT.

Henderson is an AWFUL place. I've lived here since Friday July 13, 2007 -- and this has been the longest 15 months of my life. I am leaving and moving to the mountains of northwest Georgia next month (November 2008), and I'm leaving running and screaming...like everyone else who can afford to move. Here's why:

Henderson and Vance County have the worst of everything in N.C.; we're at the top of all the bad lists and the bottom of all the good ones

Some highlights:

* Highest poverty rate in the state (over 40% of childern here live in poverty, over 20% of the population as a whole)
* Crime -- people shooting out the windows of your car/truck at night is not uncommon, happened to several people in the 15 months I've lived here
* Violent crime (several murders annually, and this is a TINY city (more like a "small town" in terms of size), things like people beating each other to death with pipes, there was a drive-by shooting in broad daylight on Garnett Drive which is the "main street" here just about 2 weeks ago, and the worst part is that it didn't really surprise anyone)
* Burglary/theft (one of many examples: copper theives are breaking into houses and hack-sawing out the copper plumbing pipes since melted-down copper is so valuable right now)
* Poverty
* Crime -- armed home invasions in BROAD DAYLIGHT on WEEKDAYS
* Highest AIDS rate in the state
* Highest teen pregnancy rate in the state
* Horrible school system -- the worst funded in the state, and one of the highest dropout rates
* Miniscule police presence, and the cops won't even drive through certain parts of town (particularly the 3rd Ward), much less get out of their cars
* Horrible upkeep of roads and buildings; tons of abandoned and falling-down houses
* Crime -- everyone in their right mind hides under their mattresses on Friday night (and the rest of the weekend for that matter)
* Poverty
* Rampant racism -- the KKK has a listing in the white pages of the phone book -- white on black, black on white, black/white on hispanic, etc.
* Tons of bad sections of town, and prejudice associated with that
* Filth, litter all over the city and folks' lawns...looks awful, and lowers all property values, but folks here don't even see it any more they've been looking at it so long
* Very high unemployment rate; almost no jobs, no new businesses moving in (we were devastated by the closing of the Harriett-Henderson yarn mill a few years ago); getting a job at McDonalds or Wal-Mart is considered a "golden opportunity"
* CRIME -- tons of armed robberies, even in places with tons of security cameras
* Very low white population, very high black population -- sorry if saying that offends you, but it's a major factor in the high crime and lack of infrastructure upkeep and jobs; there is tons of black-on-white violent crime here; also a lot of illegals moving in
* TONS of registered sex offenders
* Crime -- three deadbolts on every door + bars on the windows is a common sight here; our crime rate is higher than New York's or Los Angeles'
* Drugs, drugs, drugs -- drugs sold all over the place, right out in the open; always tons of meth busts and other drug busts where the house is filled with guns and drugs and counterfeit cash
* Tons of black youth street gangs, and associated violence
* Tons of abandoned houses being used as "crack houses", and the city is unwilling (and perhaps too poor) to tear them down or bring them up to code
* Ridiculous property taxes which do NOTHING for the citizens
* Over an hour from "the Triangle" (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill) -- so if you can't buy/find whatever you need in Henderson, you're a long way from anywhere else; we're the only city of any significance in the area; Henderson is a crime-ridden urban center surrounded by crime-ridden rural areas and trailer parks
* The city looks awful; falling-down and burned-out houses all over the place
* Very few homeowners; most houses are on a for-rent or rent-to-own basis, and are rented out by slumlords to the many recent parolees/jail letouts. No one seems to be able to hold down a job or keep out of jail; it seems a different family of criminals is renting it every month.
* Crime
* Crime
* CRIME!

If you have to live in this area of the state (i.e. job transfer), STAY AWAY FROM VANCE COUNTY AND HENDERSON! Check out the Louisburg area in Franklin County, or Wake Forest in northern Wake County; those are MUCH better areas.

For more info, be sure to check out the local citizens' blog, HomeInHenderson.com -- and if you value your life and your stomach lining, KEEP OUT OF HENDERSON AND VANCE COUNTY!

Don't be fooled by the low real estate costs -- there's a REASON why you can buy a 4-bedroom house and an acre of land for under $40,000 (some houses go as low as $8,000 - $9,000) - this is a HORRIBLE place to live and NO ONE wants to live here. The city is in a constant state of exodus, everyone who can leave IS leaving as soon as possible. It's very hard to sell your house here, since no one wants to move in.

There are no "good neighborhoods". The lesser of all the evils is the neighborhood by the "country club"/golf course. It's the best neighborhood in Henderson, and it's several times worse than the worst neighborhoods in many surrounding areas. Don't be fooled by the phrase "country club", it's a horrible place to live just like the rest of the city.

STAY AWAY FROM HENDERSON AND VANCE COUNTY!

[Megan West]

Thank you for the info on Henderson, NC Does anyone know a nice area no more than 30 miles from Raleigh, NC, where one can find a nice old Victorian home for sale under $175,000?

[SouthernFarmer]

Originally Posted by Megan West

Thank you for the info on Henderson, NC Does anyone know a nice area no more than 30 miles from Raleigh, NC, where one can find a nice old Victorian home for sale under $175,000?

You might try Cary, Wake Forest, Louisburg, or Kittrell (in that order, in terms of nice places to live i.e. crime). Kittrell, which is a TINY isolated town in southern Vance County (same place as Henderson) is quiet and has a lot of old homes; I'd certainly live there sooner than Henderson, but if you can find something in the Town of Cary...that is a very nice place if you're a rich white liberal into the whole arts and finer-things-in-life sophisticate stuff.

Henderson is a real time machine when it comes to architecture. They have the highest ratio of pre-WWII to post-WWII houses of any municipality in the entire southeast with a population over 10,000. This is sort of a nasty "catch 22"...because the crime is so phenomenally high, you simple haven't had people move in from elsewhere and build new homes. And because so many people there live in poverty, no one has had enough money to tear down their old home and build a new one to "keep up with the Joneses" over the years. The result of this is that you can drive up and down entire city blocks and not find anything newer than the 1920s, many of them well-preserved compared with other towns where people felt pressure to do renovations and "keep up with the times". If you drive up and down the side streets which run off of Garnett Street (old downtown main street), it's nothing but pre-1930 bungalows. If you like bungalows, Henderson is your Disneyland. But the violent crime and property crime rates are SO ASTRONIMICALLY HIGH that you just can't live there no matter how much you're into old houses.