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My family and I are relocating to NC to be closer to some of our family in Charlotte except we want to live by the beach.
We are looking for homes under 250,000.
Low Crime Rates.
Good Schools as we have kids that are going to be school aged in a few years.
Night life isn't super important but fun family things are.
Just curious to get some ideas of where to look before we head down the first week in March. Thanks in advance.
I suggest Carolina Beach, but it may be hard to find anything under $250K, other than condos or townhouses. You said you wanted suburbs, but other than downtown, Wilmington itself is very suburban. You might look in the Myrtle Grove area (AKA Monkey Junction) and the Pine Valley area, or the Ogden area for more affordable single family homes. Try zip code 28411, 28405, 28409 and 28412. The schools are generally decent.
Depending on where the wage-earner finds work, you might also look at Hampstead and Surf City to the east, or Belville and Southport to the west.
Last edited by goldenage1; 01-29-2015 at 01:32 PM..
I suggest Carolina Beach, but it may be hard to find anything under $250K, other than condos or townhouses. You said you wanted suburbs, but other than downtown, Wilmington itself is very suburban. You might look in the Myrtle Grove area (AKA Monkey Junction) and the Pine Valley area, or the Ogden area for more affordable single family homes. Try zip code 28411, 28405, 28409 and 28412. The schools are generally decent.
Depending on where the wage-earner finds work, you might also look at Hampstead and Surf City to the east, or Belville and Southport to the west.
Thanks. I work remotely so finding a job won't be an issue. I really appreciate the input.
Can't recommend Carolina Beach, especially not for raising a family. It's better than it used to be, but it's still a pretty sleazy place. It's also still one of the "official" Hell's Angels towns, and you can see their members there more often than you'd care to.
Add to this the fact that the streets flood and are impassable after any heavy rains and that there isn't much there for families to do, and I feel it makes for a not-very-good place to try to raise a family.
Myrtle Grove area is nice, Hampstead is nice, also look around some of the older neighborhoods like Lincoln Forest and some parts of Pine Valley. Avoid King's Grant, Northchase, any of the old neighborhoods off Carolina Beach Road (Silva Terra, Marquis Hills, etc), and anything within a few miles of UNCW.
The only other "actual" towns in New Hanover County besides Wilmington are Carolina Beach and Wrightsville Beach...so technically they are suburbs, but their housing is mostly out of your price range.
What you are looking for is area's of Wilmington or the unincorporated areas of the counties that are safe, with good schools, etc...
I would decide what High School I want to feed into and then look at your options in that price range. Ashley is the South end of the county...Hoggard in the middle and Laney to the north. New Hanover is downtown and the college area.
If you decide on Hoggard, I would look at Pine Valley or Long Leaf Hills.
For Ashley, it could be any number of neighborhoods near Monkey Junction (maybe Crosswinds) or the neighborhoods that surround Ashley High School.
For Laney, I would recommend the Ogden area. You may check the middle school district boundaries though...Noble is considered better than Holly Shelter or Trask.
New Hanover can be more complicated...Echo Farms is good, but the Elementary and Middle School aren't advised. IMO, the college area is not advised because of the college kids in rental housing in those neighborhoods and the lower schools are just marginal. The best option I could come up with is if you want to attend New Hanover, since it is an open enrollment school, just plan on driving your kids there and live in one of the other areas.
If you want to go out of New Hanover County, best bet with your price range is to head to Hampstead, but consider that you will spend a lot of time driving into New Hanover County. Hampstead is also not an incorporated town, so it doesn't offer a true "suburb" feel...it has more of a strip/subdivision feel to it.
Hi, what do you mean by "open enrollment" schools? We are considering a relocation from Charlotte with a 13 and 15 year old and I want to get them in the best possible highschool. Is Hoggard the best option? What neighborhoods would you recommend in this district under $500,000?
Hi, what do you mean by "open enrollment" schools? We are considering a relocation from Charlotte with a 13 and 15 year old and I want to get them in the best possible highschool. Is Hoggard the best option? What neighborhoods would you recommend in this district under $500,000?
We recently moved to Northern Hamstead /Surf City in December from Northern California. Our kids, ages 15/17 love Topsail high school and are thriving. They both have excellent GPAs and having the opportunity to start taking Freshman college classes for dual credit while you are still a Jr. or Sr. in HS is a great chance to get some basics out of the way for their freshman year FOR FREE!! We have a 3,000sqft+ custom home with Surf City utilities, water and sewer, and bought for less than $275K. You don't have to pay a lot to be in a sidewalk, large lot (1/3-1/2 acre)), subdivision 3 miles from the beach. We have grocery stores, Lowes Hardware, cute cafes and restaurants and we couldn't be happier and our kids love it. My husband and I both work from home and have plenty of bandwidth for our con calls and presentations through Charter cable.
Hi, what do you mean by "open enrollment" schools? We are considering a relocation from Charlotte with a 13 and 15 year old and I want to get them in the best possible highschool. Is Hoggard the best option? What neighborhoods would you recommend in this district under $500,000?
Actually, all of the high schools have been changed to open enrollment, but Hoggard and Laney are overcrowded as it is, so they have limited spots. I may be wrong on this, but I believe that was changed because New Hanover was the only open enrollment and stacked their basketball team awhile back and won the State title.
If you get in through open enrollment, you have to get your kids to school.
Hoggard has the best scores...it was listed as the 11th best public high school in NC a few years back. For up to 500K you can pick a number of neighborhoods, I would base it on how from employment you want to be. Probably can not find something on the water for that price though.
Forgive my ignorance, what is "open enrollment"? Does that mean that the subdivision you buy into does not guarantee your spot in the highschool? Do you have to apply? I want a stable environment for my kids where they won't be moved around once they start.
mattyshummel, will definetly check out topsail also!
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A vote for Topsail HS and Hampstead/Surf City
