Hello Everyone, yeah, relocating to NC (Raleigh, Greensboro: transplants, real estate, to rent)

[RMP059]

Hi All,
I'm sure you natives are very tired of hearing this, but another yankee is moving to your great state. I run my own business and my wife is also self-employed so jobs won't be an issue for us. Boston area is just too expensive now. And the cold, and the snow, and the traffic. *sigh*

Anyway, we've visited a couple times to the Triangle Area, and really like it. We live in a small city now and we like a somewhat urban environment, prefer to walk to places if possible. We would like to buy in Chapel Hill but I think we've been priced out, we're thinking around $200k, so we're considering some of the surrounding areas. Maybe Hillsborough? Maybe Durham? The crime rates in all of NC are a bit of a concern to us, and Durham's is higher than most - a bit of a sticking point for Durham.

We are empty nesters but I need a lot of space for my business, and my wife needs her own office for her work as well. I sell antiques and collectibles online and have a lot of stock, so I might need to rent a warehouse too. Are there small warehouses that could converted to a living/work space? I noticed the large tobacco warehouses were being converted but I didn't really see smaller lofts that could be converted to a single unit? We also would not be against a small storefront with living space above. Is that something that could be found in Hillsboro for our price range?

We plan to move in about 9-15 mos. and are pretty sure we want to concentrate our search in the Chapel Hill/Durham area (still looking at NC as a whole though). We didn't visit Raleigh much the last time thru so my recollections are hazy at best. We tend to go out to eat at a nice restaurant at least once a week, we like antique shows, flea markets, farmer markets. My wife does a lot of outdoor sports too, roadraces, etc. We occasionally like to see live original rock or country music in smaller venues, preferably local stuff.

I guess I am looking for a little more focus or possibly some clues to areas we might be overlooking. Any advice would be appreciated.

And....er....sorry about all of us moving down here, but your state just has so much to offer. And you have seasons! I can't live without seasons. But a winter that's not 5 months long would be real nice.

[Jdatlas]

Unfortunately I can't offer you any advice as we are in the midst of relocating down there too. But I wanted to tell you that I agree with you about wanting to say goodbye to winters that last 5 months. We are in MA too and I can't wait to live where the weather is warmer in the winter.

Good luck with your search,

Jackie

[MrsSteel]

Hi there, RMP059! If you hang around these boards a bit, you'll see that most of the people posting here are transplants. In other words, you're in good company.

First of all, if you're interested in Hillsborough, make sure you spell the name correctly as you search. The historic little town is quite proud that it has held onto the "ugh" at the end of its name. There are homes to be found in Hillsborough in your price range, but the prices seem to be increasing steadily. You might find a better deal elsewhere.

As for Durham, don't let the negative chatter fool you. As many have stated repeatedly all over this board, most of the crime in Durham is concentrated to a certain population area to the east of downtown. Most of Durham is actually just as safe as any other part of the Triangle.

[RMP059]

So MrsSteel, where might you suggest we look? We are looking at Durham, we had a realtor take around some neighborhoods around.....Duke, and west of it I think? And they were very nice, they had a bike path to downtown, and beautiful tree-shaded roads, houses were a little smaller than we were hoping (and the no-basement thing is pretty wacky to us). But we're really not sure what other communities would be attractive to us. It does seem Chapel Hill is out of our range now (it wasnt when we started looking 12 years ago, but we decided we didn't want to relocate after our son had started in the local MA schools).

I think we'd prefer a smaller city to a sprawling suburb. We live in Salem MA now, and we like it, we like having a small downtown, we like the convenience of getting into Boston. So a smaller city with a small but lively downtown and within 20-30 min drive to a larger urban area would work nicely. We also really like 1950s/1960s stuff, so a neighborhood that was developed in that time frame would have a lot of appeal to us, or any older houses really. Do any smaller outlying communities fit that description?

[MrsSteel]

What sort of square footage are you wanting? How many rooms? As for the basements, they are few and far between here. I hear that's because of the native soil. There's so much clay in the soil here that a basement would be rather troublesome. Best to just accept it as one of the quirks of moving to a new area.

Well, I will admit to you that I currenlty live in Hillsborough (we're renting a house), but we're buying a house in southwest Durham. Sadly, Hillsborough is just a little too far out from my husband's office. I think that it is a marvelously sweet town & the historic downtown area is small but quite lively. Since you don't have to have new construction, you might even find something you like near the downtown area.

Chapel Hill has some of the most expensive real estate in the Triangle, but you might find someplace nearby that will make you happy (Fearrington springs to mind).

There are other charming small towns in the area of the Triangle, but I know very little about them so I'll leave it to others to give you the scoop!

[RMP059]

Well, we need a lot of space, both of us work from home. Currently we have a 2000+ sf loft. We really don't want to go much smaller. 3-4 bedrooms (2 would be used as offices), 1 bath, and something with storage would be ideal. We're considering a 2-family where we live in one part and work/store in the other. In a worst case scenario we'll rent warehouse space. The lot size is not that important, actually small might be better, the less maintenance the better, although we do have a dog and a small fenced back yard would be nice.

We didn't investigate Hillsborough at all when we visited last summer. Since we both are self-employed, commuting is never a problem. A small downtown, a nearby grocery store, some good beer, a freindly post office and as long as there's high speed internet access, we're all set.

[coltank]

For what you want I think downtown Durham will be what you are looking for, and possibly downtown Hillsborough, although I think prices there have started jump a lot too. The only thing you may run into is a slightly outdated home or one that needs a little work, in order to get the location and price you are looking for.

Downtown Wake Forest seems very quaint as well, although I am not very familiar with it. Maybe someone else on the board will have some more info.

[NOVA2]

Hiya.

I actually saw a downtown spot that used to house an antiques shop in Liberty, NC (about 30 miles south of Greensboro, NC). It's about $98k though I'm sure negotiable. All I can tell you is it's on that main street in Liberty-- Swannoa or something like that. The listing belonged to Allen Tate. (Hope the moderator doesn't delete the name; I'm certainly not promoting them for any reason.)

I, too, have considered that type of live-above-work-space so that one in Liberty caught my eye. (You may know that Liberty has a big antique shindig each year.) The reason I did NOT take that property was because there was no parking except somewhere on a SHARED lot behind the bldg. or on the street itself. Warning: This town is small.

Hope this helps.

Also loopnet.com. Search for commercial props. I've seen several on there before.