Relocating (Charlotte, Raleigh, Wilmington: real estate, condos, low crime)

[lcrockvt]

Hello,

My husband and I are from Vermont. We are like lots looking to relocate down where its a little more warmer and affordable. Our main criteria is
low crime, we love the ocean along with lakes. Not looking for a large city something under 100,000 but also has good quality food and healthcare. We are outside people who love to live. Hiking, biking, swimming and golfing etc. Were not your typical gated community people. We love amenities but also like a little quiet and privacy. Got any ideas...We'd love to hear from you since we only have 5 weeks before we head out to find our new home..
Thanks in Advance..

[dsobotta]

Originally Posted by lcrockvt

Hello,

My husband and I are from Vermont. We are like lots looking to relocate down where its a little more warmer and affordable. Our main criteria is
low crime, we love the ocean along with lakes. Not looking for a large city something under 100,000 but also has good quality food and healthcare. We are outside people who love to live. Hiking, biking, swimming and golfing etc. Were not your typical gated community people. We love amenities but also like a little quiet and privacy. Got any ideas...We'd love to hear from you since we only have 5 weeks before we head out to find our new home..
Thanks in Advance..

The best suggestion I can give you is North Carolina's Crystal Coast.

If you come to the Crystal Coast, there is no danger of finding 100,000 people in one spot. I think it is fairly unique along the southern coast. It is not overdeveloped since it is guarded on one end by the Cape Lookout National Seashore and on the backside by the 158,000 acres of the Croatan National Forest.

It is a place for people love an active outdoor life. There are great trails, plenty of places to bike, swim, kayak, and boat. We even allow golfing but you are surrounded more by natural beauty than you are by golf courses.

There are places here to suit almost any taste. This is one of the premier places on the east coast for easy water access. There is no feeding a parking meter to get to the beach.

As I have said hundreds of time, I can drive to Swansboro in ten minutes by boat or car. Once I am in Swansboro, I am in the Intracoastal Waterway. Then it is just a few minutes before I am out Bogue Inlet and into the ocean.

The fishing is great, we live on the White Oak, and besides it being a two mile wide coastal river that is great for kayaking, it offers some protection from the crowds on the half dozen weekends of the year when the ICW gets a little crowded. We are not swamped by tourists during the summer like the Northern Outer Banks. We also have a strong year round population and services that don't disappear in the winter.

The waters here are clear, clean, and warm six to seven months out of the year. I planted my tomato plants yesterday, and if all goes well I will have tomatoes the last week of May. The strawberries should be ripe in a couple of weeks.

This afternoon I spent a couple of hours walking on the beach. It was absolutely stunning. Now the water is still cold but it will be fine by late May to early June for those who like it brisk. I enjoy it more usually in mid-June but it all depends on the weather.

This was a tough winter down here, but it only snowed once and that the first serious snow in eight years. It lasted a day. We never saw if below twenty at our house, and once again this was the worst winter most people can remember.

Taxes are low, about $1,800 a year on a $600K home. A good chunk of the year, we don't need heat or air conditioning. We have about six weeks in the summer when the heat and humidity are challenging, but we usually handle that by staying close to the water or getting right in the water.

Single family homes range from the $160K range up to whatever you want to pay.

We have lots of great small restaurants, plenty of grocery stores, hardware stores, and about 20 minutes from us, there is Morehead City with almost 10,000 people and all the services that you could want from Panera Bread to Best Buy and TJ Maxx. There are three hospitals in the area and we are under three hours to the Duke Medical Center. We do have to drive 30 minutes to get to Target, but that is the only shopping complaint that my wife has.

You can find lots of links to more information at this website, Crystal Coast Links.

I write a blog about the area, The Crystal Coast, Saltwater on my feet.

There is an archive of posts that talk in detail about the area.

I have articles about the area posted on this site, the North Carolina Crystal Coast.

I even have some virtual trips posted.

When I am in the area which is most of the time, I post weather observations and commentary on the Crystal Coast site. During the spring and summer, you can find out what is happening and detailed weather for boating from reading my posts there.

I even did a Google earth boat trip yesterday as we were getting our skiff ready for the season.

There are lots of knowledgeable people on the forum that can answer almost any question. I will be glad to answer questions, as I am in real estate and know my end of the county well.

Carteret County is a great place to live. We could have picked anywhere on the east coast, and after three years of looking this was out choice.

Very few people who visit leave without falling in love with the area between Swansboro and Beaufort. I suspect we can find you a spot. We are not big on night life unless you consider walking the beaches at night to be night life, but this is one of the easiest places in the world to have an active out door life style. We have plenty of community festivals on top of it all.

Give me a shout if you want more info. I have plenty posted here on the forum. They say a picture is worth a lot of words.

I snapped this one on the beach today. There are more taken today posted at my Picasa web album site.

[dsobotta]

Crime is very low here. For example have a look at the Cape Carteret profile on City-Data.

[southbound]

Hey! Another Vermonter here!! Saw your post and had to say hello! Our family is visiting Cape Carteret mid June to see what it's like. We are hoping by next spring to be on our way! Ever since I was little I have wanted to live by the ocean. I have been looking on these boards for a couple years now and it's been so helpful!! Good luck to you!!

[dsobotta]

Originally Posted by southbound

Hey! Another Vermonter here!! Saw your post and had to say hello! Our family is visiting Cape Carteret mid June to see what it's like. We are hoping by next spring to be on our way! Ever since I was little I have wanted to live by the ocean. I have been looking on these boards for a couple years now and it's been so helpful!! Good luck to you!!

I have a travel guide for Emerald Isle (http://coastalnc.org/emeraldislenctravelguidecd - broken link), one for Beaufort (http://coastalnc.org/beaufortnctravelguidecd - broken link), and one for Swansboro.

Hope you have a great trip.

[southbound]

Thank you! I will look at your travel guides! We are so excited to visit! It's all our children talk about!!

[dsobotta]

Originally Posted by dbouley

Hello,
If you plan on driving then other areas are fine, but family may not be so willing to make the 15 hour road trip from VT.

The forum is a great place for information, but suggesting that someone going to another area of the coast besides Wilmington has no choice but to drive is bordering on deceptive.

I just did a quick check and there are a number of flights from Coastal Carolina Airport in New Bern to Vermont. There are also several flights from Ellis Airport in Jacksonville.

Both New Bern and Jacksonville Airports are 35 to 45 minutes or less from most places in Carteret County.

Let us try to help people not confuse them.

[Francois]

It is not overdeveloped

Wow, you must not have been here very long then--it is practically New York City compared to what it was like up until maybe 15 years ago! Many of us remember the time (before it was called the trendy "Crystal Coast", and it was just known as "Morehead" in general or "Atlantic Beach/Salter Path/Emerald Isle/Morehead City/Beaufort" all as separate towns. Never any congestion on 58. No "Wings" generic beachwear stores, let alone 3 of them within a half mile! you could actually catch fish in the surf (not overfished) and there were 6 fishing piers on Bogue Banks (now there's one--though that's the fault of hurricanes more than of too-fast growth). Condos were pretty rare; most dwellings were old cottages. Now, good luck.

[dsobotta]

Originally Posted by Francois

Wow, you must not have been here very long then--it is practically New York City compared to what it was like up until maybe 15 years ago! Many of us remember the time (before it was called the trendy "Crystal Coast", and it was just known as "Morehead" in general or "Atlantic Beach/Salter Path/Emerald Isle/Morehead City/Beaufort" all as separate towns. Never any congestion on 58. No "Wings" generic beachwear stores, let alone 3 of them within a half mile! you could actually catch fish in the surf (not overfished) and there were 6 fishing piers on Bogue Banks (now there's one--though that's the fault of hurricanes more than of too-fast growth). Condos were pretty rare; most dwellings were old cottages. Now, good luck.

Actually I have been coming here nearly sixty years, long enough to remember when some of the more famous restaurants in Morehead City were the only places to eat and actually served good food.

I even fished the Point in Emerald Isle when the only way to get there was to drive several miles along the beach.

I consider Myrtle Beach overdeveloped.

Cape Carteret and even Emerald Isle do not fit the description of overdeveloped. I can count the number of motels on one hand on the land side and have a couple of fingers left. Emerald Isle isn't much different.

The nearest Walmart is 18 miles away.

I drive by a golf course and a couple of thirty acre fields along with a lot of pine woods on my short trip from Bluewater Cove to Cape Carteret.

When I go up to T&Ws Oyster House, there is far more forest than anything else on the trip.

If you have been to Northern Virginia, Charlotte, Raleigh or Myrtle Beach, you know over developed. Perhaps that short stretch in Atlantic Beach might be over developed, but it is far from wall to wall high rise condos like you see in Myrtle Beach. It is also only a mile or two of the over twenty miles of beach.

How many golf courses do we have in the county- five or six? Myrtle Beach has over 80.

There are still fish in surf, and if there are not as many, I suspect there is another reason than too many sport fishermen.