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Looking for suggestions on best place to move, buy a single family house and raise family(2 school going kids). I am an IT professional who travels through out US cities to client locations every week (to and fro)as part of my regular job. Good schooling is definitely a criteria for me.
Where do IT consultants/professionals like me prefer to live in the USA?
Any specific city suggestions or any criteria I should consider while deciding to move to a new place?
North Atlanta suburbs will be the best pick for you. Great airport with 2 hours flights to 70% of the US population. Alpharetta/Johns Creek areas of Metro Atlanta have some of the best schools in the south east..Decent weather with reasonable cost of living..
If you don't like cold or snow, throw Denver & Chicago out the window
Seattle, Bay Area & DC/Baltimore have much milder winters and much less frequent snow so weather is more tolerable. They have the largest concentration of IT work but due to that and the industries that reside in them, they are by far the most expensive metro/regions to set up shop, so CoL is going to play a huge factor.
If you want to go further south... Dallas, Austin, Charlotte, Atlanta & Nashville are rapidly growing markets for IT. All are substantially cheaper than the above regions, and have wonderful weather almost year round
North Atlanta suburbs will be the best pick for you. Great airport with 2 hours flights to 70% of the US population. Alpharetta/Johns Creek areas of Metro Atlanta have some of the best schools in the south east..Decent weather with reasonable cost of living..
That’s very inconvenient airport access for a road warrior. I’ve done a ton of business in the north Atlanta burbs. The airport drive is awful.
The Williamson County Nashville suburbs like Brentwood and Franklin have top schools. Good airport. You can get your Ferrari or Lamborghini serviced. No income taxes. Walkable to Main Street Franklin is a really nice place to live.
I'd suggest Raleigh-Durham. It has a moderate four season climate with little snow and a manageable 2 to 3 months of summer. It's a major hub of IT in it's own right minus the hefty cost of living and overall is quite pleasant to live in. Finally if traveling often RDU is an easy to reach airport, that's very user-friendly with surprisingly great nonstop service to 50 cities. Schools are by/large excellent with a recommendation of Chapel Hill-Carrboro (which is very family-friendly) and the top school district in NC, plus an easy 30 minute drive (15 miles) to RDU.
Where do you live now? What do you like about it? What don't you like about it? Why do you want to move? Are you moving from something?
Where is your spouse from? Where does he/she have a network? Will your spouse work? In what field?
What do you and your family like to spend free-time doing?
Where is your boss/department located? Where are most of your customers? Time zones might be important.
If this job doesn't work out for some reason, can you get a new job in this new city? You're going to be stuck with a house. Assume another major recessions happens in a year, or 3, or 5, or 10. Plan for the worse, hope for the best.
There are so many considerations that could be taken into account that based on the little information it becomes very much a matter of guessing and our personal biases.
I'd suggest Raleigh-Durham. It has a moderate four season climate with little snow and a manageable 2 to 3 months of summer. It's a major hub of IT in it's own right minus the hefty cost of living and overall is quite pleasant to live in. Finally if traveling often RDU is an easy to reach airport, that's very user-friendly with surprisingly great nonstop service to 50 cities. Schools are by/large excellent with a recommendation of Chapel Hill-Carrboro (which is very family-friendly) and the top school district in NC, plus an easy 30 minute drive (15 miles) to RDU.
For a road warrior, RDU and BNA are about as small as you'd want to go for an airport.
For short notice business travel, the big Southwest presence in Nashville is useful since you can throw $15 at the flight and board early enough to have a place for your roll-aboard and an aisle seat. I've had lots of occasions on the majors where I had to book a flight on short notice and the only remaining seats are middle row death seats back by the blue toilet water and my employers usually won't pay for premium seating. Once you have FT status on an airline, it's less of an issue.
If you pick an airport smaller than that, you often lose the option of flying early Monday morning to start your work week because you have to connect over a hub. You're flying Sunday night so you can get there. For someone who cares about school systems, that's a lot of family time you have to give up.
In the end, Tennessee with no state income tax is a big win. The North Carolina 5.5% state income tax rate when you're a 6 figure road warrior ends up being a lot of money.
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