Did our first visit. Loved it. Looking for any info, especially for radiology! Trying to narrow down our search... (Charlotte: low crime)
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Hello all, my wife and I are considering a move to the Charlotte area in the next year/year and a half. We were turned on to the area by a friend and recently turned up the intensity of our search. It's finally real. We went and spent a week in Charlotte and drove. around. everywhere. Seriously, we put like 800 miles on our car just aimlessly driving and exploring.
I have a million questions but I'll start with these.
For those familiar with health care, how are the job markets? My wife and I are both in radiology and would like to both work full time. Will we be able to find jobs with NY addresses prior to our move? We'll each have friends in the field down here but reassurance is nice If you're familiar.. how is the pay? Novant lists their salaries but I'm wondering how the breakdown is. They post Hire Rate/Mid/Max. Do all new hires make the same or would someone with 9 years experience make mid? Just trying to figure out how that works.
How does Atrium/Novant compare?
I'm really just trying to find out how much we'd make prior to going down so I can plan our budget, find appropriate housing etc.
As for housing, what is a comfortable household income? We toured Lennar, MI and most of the builders in Huntersville, Waxhaw, Fort Mill etc. Those are dream homes and according to the listings and calculators they seem affordable? Again, trying to see how we would live. 5 bedrooms never seemed possible here but there it could be..
So we're not sure on raising a family in the city but we were a fan of the suburbs. We enjoyed Matthews, Waxhaw, Fort Mill, Indian Land and Huntersville. Didn't have enough time to love/hate anything but how are the communities? What are the best communities to raise a family? Schools are obviously important as well as proximity to jobs.
How is the traffic? We were down on the off week so it was hard to judge the real traffic.
I could go on for hours. I don't want to ramble. Anything you can tell a 30 year old Long Islander about the area would be super helpful.
Those are all pretty good towns. The biggest overall complaint about a lot of them is increased traffic.
“Proximity to jobs” may be tough if you’re looking at a very specific field. Just doing a google search on “radiology” and Huntersville or Fort Mill seem to be the most central to radiology places. Don’t see much too close to Waxhaw. In general, Waxhaw and Indian Land are IMO the 2 “furthest out” of the towns you listed. Basically there’s not much south of them so you’ll probably often be going in a couple directions to do things whereas places like Fort Mill, Huntersville and Matthews are a little more central IMO.
You basically have 2 options. Try to find a job first and then that will help you narrow down your search. Or if you are dead set on a specific town you can try more for jobs in a specific area - but that of course will limit your job options.
Here is the “official” website for school data in NC, I forget if SC has something similar: https://ncreportcards.ondemand.sas.com/src. Some people like to knock CMS schools because it is a huge district (NC schools are county-based), but you really need to look at the specific schools in the area you’re looking at. Due to all of the growth in recent years, there has been more redistricting than you’re probably used to, but that is the case in almost all of the surrounding counties. I’m not extremely familiar with how it works but SC may have a slight advantage in this regard because I think Fort Mill for example is kinda it’s own district, so even if you are redistricted you’re likely getting moved to another “good” school. You can also go on the York and Lancaster County forum for SC-specific questions. Bottom line, if you buy a house primarily for a specific school, try to be as close as possible to that school and check the school zoning maps to see how close you are to the boundary.
When looking at house costs one thing to keep in mind is the property tax rate. Don’t be fooled if realtors/builders say something like “Mecklenburg has the highest taxes” because that’s simply not true. It can be confusing because there are a lot of “unincorporated” areas that are not within town limits and depending on the area can have a significant difference in tax rates. I tried to do a bit of analysis here - https://www.city-data.com/forum/char...k-highest.html
Hello all, my wife and I are considering a move to the Charlotte area in the next year/year and a half. We were turned on to the area by a friend and recently turned up the intensity of our search. It's finally real. We went and spent a week in Charlotte and drove. around. everywhere. Seriously, we put like 800 miles on our car just aimlessly driving and exploring.
I have a million questions but I'll start with these.
For those familiar with health care, how are the job markets? My wife and I are both in radiology and would like to both work full time. Will we be able to find jobs with NY addresses prior to our move? We'll each have friends in the field down here but reassurance is nice If you're familiar.. how is the pay? Novant lists their salaries but I'm wondering how the breakdown is. They post Hire Rate/Mid/Max. Do all new hires make the same or would someone with 9 years experience make mid? Just trying to figure out how that works.
How does Atrium/Novant compare?
I'm really just trying to find out how much we'd make prior to going down so I can plan our budget, find appropriate housing etc.
As for housing, what is a comfortable household income? We toured Lennar, MI and most of the builders in Huntersville, Waxhaw, Fort Mill etc. Those are dream homes and according to the listings and calculators they seem affordable? Again, trying to see how we would live. 5 bedrooms never seemed possible here but there it could be..
So we're not sure on raising a family in the city but we were a fan of the suburbs. We enjoyed Matthews, Waxhaw, Fort Mill, Indian Land and Huntersville. Didn't have enough time to love/hate anything but how are the communities? What are the best communities to raise a family? Schools are obviously important as well as proximity to jobs.
How is the traffic? We were down on the off week so it was hard to judge the real traffic.
I could go on for hours. I don't want to ramble. Anything you can tell a 30 year old Long Islander about the area would be super helpful.
Thanks!
Fort Mill/Indian Land are basically the same theres really no difference those areas are growing at a fast rate b/c of the schools ( weddington , marvin , cutbertson ) im pretty sure they will make another school b/c cutbertson is getting crowded already. Huntersville has the same issue Concord does with traffic going into Charlotte. Waxhaw only has schools to offer , nice expensive homes and thats about it. Your going to want to drive in south charlotte alot if your in Waxhaw/Marvin. Keep in mind those areas you mentioned are towns/cities around Charlotte they are not suburbs of Charlotte. So if your jobs are deep in Charlotte your going to have to deal with bad commute if your in waxhaw/marvin/indian land/fortmill probably an hour at most. Huntersville/Concord may be better to deal with but im not sure what schools they have i have heard schools in Concord were good. If you like Huntersville you may want to try Harrisburg. Just my experience being here since 2007 alot of these towns feel very much the same its just based on what you want ( commute time , schools , housins , cost of living ) every where is getting more expensive so alot of people are moving out into the outskirts.
Fort Mill/Indian Land are basically the same theres really no difference those areas are growing at a fast rate b/c of the schools ( weddington , marvin , cutbertson ) im pretty sure they will make another school b/c cutbertson is getting crowded already. Huntersville has the same issue Concord does with traffic going into Charlotte. Waxhaw only has schools to offer , nice expensive homes and thats about it. Your going to want to drive in south charlotte alot if your in Waxhaw/Marvin. Keep in mind those areas you mentioned are towns/cities around Charlotte they are not suburbs of Charlotte. So if your jobs are deep in Charlotte your going to have to deal with bad commute if your in waxhaw/marvin/indian land/fortmill probably an hour at most. Huntersville/Concord may be better to deal with but im not sure what schools they have i have heard schools in Concord were good. If you like Huntersville you may want to try Harrisburg. Just my experience being here since 2007 alot of these towns feel very much the same its just based on what you want ( commute time , schools , housins , cost of living ) every where is getting more expensive so alot of people are moving out into the outskirts.
I will 2nd harrisbrug, moved here in 2017 from Charlotte and love it. Quiet, low crime, nice housing, good schools, and close to most things.
Wife works for Atrium and while it has its issues like every job she thinks they are good to work for. They just built a new Novant building in Harrisburg Town Center, there are a ton of DR offices, and there is an emergency room also along with multiple urget cares. I am not sure how many of them offer radiology services though. You aren't far from Atrium University Hospital and about 20 minute drive to Atrium NorthEast in Concord.
Here are some of the offices in Harrisburg
Harrisburg Radiology(would be the only one I would think has what you are looking for)
Harrisburg Family Medicine
Atrium Harrisburg ER
Novant Urgent Care
Harrisburg Family Physicians
Cabarrus Family Medicine
Arsley Internal Medicine
Can't speak to the radiology side of things but, as far as homes and affordability, most of the Charlotte area is likely going to seem very reasonable compared to LI. You'll also likely see a pretty significant increase in purchasing power due to the lower overall tax burden which can make a big difference in what you can afford.
I know my father in NJ pays in property taxes what is nearly equal to my entire mortgage for the year. His house is also about half the size of mine with half the land. This is a bit of an extreme example as I only pay county taxes and he pays county & city but, still it blows my mind there is that significant of a difference.
As far as a comfortable household income goes... Can't answer that for you. Everyone's situation is different. Two people with simple needs are going to have a very different income requirement than a family of 5 who "needs" a new Range Rover, Starbucks every morning, a YMCA membership and only shops at Whole Foods. Good Luck with your move.
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If you're familiar.. how is the pay? Novant lists their salaries but I'm wondering how the breakdown is. They post Hire Rate/Mid/Max. Do all new hires make the same or would someone with 9 years experience make mid? Just trying to figure out how that works. 
