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Hello all,
Been lurking for a month or so, here goes...Please share your thoughts.
We have been considering our move for about a year and a half. After almost a year on the market, we have finally struck a deal on the sale of our home in Orange County, NY. We should be closing within 45 days. Our timing was pretty bad-we put the house on the market in Nov 2005, the official start of the buyers market up here! We will not be going down as rich NYers and buying a huge house with cash.
We are considering Cary (crowded schools,we hear) and Apex vs the Wilmington area, Hampstead in particular.
I work as a Network Analyst, doing mostly datacenter stuff, in NYC. My commute is 4 hours each day, 2 hours each way.
My wife is an RN and currently does part-time pediatric home care as often as her full-time position as mom and domestic engineer for our 3, 7, and 8 year olds will allow.
Our primary motivation for moving is to get our family together for the remaining years we have our children at home. We don't buy into the live-to-work lifestyle, sending the kids off to babysitters and daycare, etc.. We don't want look back twenty years from now and wish we had lived differently. I've also wanted to get out of NYC since 9-11 because I might not be so lucky next time.
We are looking for a home in the mid 200s in either area of the state. We plan to rent for a few months before buying.
The RTP area is sort of a no-brainer for me because of the high-tech jobs. We like the areas outside of Wilmington because they are growing more slowly and the schools are not yet overcrowded. It will be more challenging for me to find a job around Wilmington, but the smaller communties are more attractive in some ways than the Raleigh suburbs. My wife can work in either area as an RN.
We have spent about 4 weeks on vacation/exploring in both areas but still have not decided on where to settle.
It seems to boil down to this: Raleigh/Cary/Apex - with crowded towns, overcrowded schools, great jobs vs Wilmington/Hampstead with smaller towns, smaller schools, more rural, not-so-great job prospects. (I could be completely of base on these assumptions, either way I'd like to hear your opinions).
We rode out Ernesto in a first row beach house on North Topsail Island last week-now we have serious respect for these storms. That is another factor to consider...
Jobs in the Network Analyst field will be few and far between in Wilmington. I worked for a software company there for 5 years, we had a large layoff (back in 2002) and nearly everyone laid off had to move to the Raleigh or Charlotte area to find work. There just are not those sorts of jobs there in high numbers. Pay in Wilmington will also be lower than in Raleigh or large cities. The numbers of people willing to take less money to live by the beach drives salaries down. I make 20K a year more in Asheville than I did there for basically the same job.
The schools in New Hanover County (Wilmington) aren't bad, but are not going to be nearly as high in quality as you have in NY. Wake County might be better in that respect. The Pender County schools (the county just north of New Hanover), where you seem to be willing to live are not very good. People in Wilmington would make fun of that school system regularly.
I lived in Wilmington for five years and would probably move back if the opportunity arose, so I'm not bashing it. Just being honest. My son is getting a much better education here in the Asheville area than he did when we lived in Wilmington.
Well, keep this in mind...not all the areas around the Triangle are going to have overcrowded schools and overcrowded neighborhoods. What you've described so far sounds mostly like Wake County, which is famous for the crowded schools.
But if you got a job in RTP you could still easily live closeby and have that "smaller town, smaller schools" that you say you also like. Orange County and northern Chatham Counties are both close enough to RTP (at least, not much further than Cary is) for a reasonable commute! Both of those counties of course have their share of growing pains, as do all, but it's no where near the type Wake County has.
And your wife, as a nurse, would have a ton of job prospects in the area too, no doubt.
Hello all,
Been lurking for a month or so, here goes...Please share your thoughts.
We have been considering our move for about a year and a half. After almost a year on the market, we have finally struck a deal on the sale of our home in Orange County, NY. We should be closing within 45 days. Our timing was pretty bad-we put the house on the market in Nov 2005, the official start of the buyers market up here! We will not be going down as rich NYers and buying a huge house with cash.
We are considering Cary (crowded schools,we hear) and Apex vs the Wilmington area, Hampstead in particular.
I work as a Network Analyst, doing mostly datacenter stuff, in NYC. My commute is 4 hours each day, 2 hours each way.
My wife is an RN and currently does part-time pediatric home care as often as her full-time position as mom and domestic engineer for our 3, 7, and 8 year olds will allow.
Our primary motivation for moving is to get our family together for the remaining years we have our children at home. We don't buy into the live-to-work lifestyle, sending the kids off to babysitters and daycare, etc.. We don't want look back twenty years from now and wish we had lived differently. I've also wanted to get out of NYC since 9-11 because I might not be so lucky next time.
We are looking for a home in the mid 200s in either area of the state. We plan to rent for a few months before buying.
The RTP area is sort of a no-brainer for me because of the high-tech jobs. We like the areas outside of Wilmington because they are growing more slowly and the schools are not yet overcrowded. It will be more challenging for me to find a job around Wilmington, but the smaller communties are more attractive in some ways than the Raleigh suburbs. My wife can work in either area as an RN.
We have spent about 4 weeks on vacation/exploring in both areas but still have not decided on where to settle.
It seems to boil down to this: Raleigh/Cary/Apex - with crowded towns, overcrowded schools, great jobs vs Wilmington/Hampstead with smaller towns, smaller schools, more rural, not-so-great job prospects. (I could be completely of base on these assumptions, either way I'd like to hear your opinions).
We rode out Ernesto in a first row beach house on North Topsail Island last week-now we have serious respect for these storms. That is another factor to consider...
Hello Lurking I'll give you my opinion, for what it is worth.
Why not consider Burlington or Greensboro? Burlington has around 50,000 people and a low crime rate. It is a nice little community and is about 50-60 miles to Raleigh. I hear nothing but good things about it. Greensboro is also getting rave reviews from people moving there. Your housing costs would sure be a lot more affordable than in Cary or Wilmington. The mid 200's in Burlington would buy you a very nice house, Greensboro too.
I would not recommend Wilmington. One of my best friends just moved away from there last year. While it was fun to have such easy access to the beach, they had been evacuated for hurricanes more times than I can remember and were tired of it. Also, the housing there is expensive.
Also, there are several data centers in the Winston-Salem Area - AON has a recent job for something similar to what you were looking for..
Dell also is in the W-S area.
While RTP is know for it's tech and bio jobs, in the tech area, there are mostly (from my research) software developments co so I have seen of lot of those types of jobs.
I would go basic monster and career searches for your title and see if any specific area shows more of a need...
We have been monitoring other types of IT jobs and from what I've seen it varies - While more jobs come out of Ral or Char, I have seen other IT type jobs in Greensboro, Burlington, etc.
Thank you all for your replies. We have decided to rent in the Hampstead area to start. The main reason is that my in-laws and a large number of my wife's extended family are in Pender and Brunswick counties. We like to stick together and it's worth a try for family. We all like being close to the ocean(not too close, of course). Renting for a while will give us the flexibility to change locations if we feel the need and will give us the chance to try the area before we commit to buying. The kids are young and we feel that the window to change schools again without too much adverse impact should be open for another year or so. I will also welcome the opportunity to park my equity safely away and take some time to look for good values in this market. We live in upstate NY and got hammered by the soft housing market...
Thank you all for sharing. Spent a good deal reviewing many posts, as I am a newbie. My husb and I are thinking about relocating to NC from MD and would appreciate any feedback and/or experiences to help guide us! We're in our mid 40's, husb works for the govt, I'm in the financial field, children are college bound already, and we're planning our early retirement. We're looking for an area to live between Durham and the ocean, a place to take our boat out fishing but sheltering it from hurricanes and an area rich of arts/sports and beauty! Basically, an ideal location between the Durham and not too far from the great water spots......are there any great water communities or fishing areas?? Any ideas?
Good luck, I commend you for the move to better your lives. I cannot believe you commuted 4 hrs! Thats ludicrous. I cant wait to hear about your new life in NC. I live near Syracuse and hate every minute of our cloudy, rainy and snowy weather. I cant wait to move south.
Thanks, crighi.
Yes, 4 hours is standard. After 9-11 it was 5 hours for a couple a years. Now it's up at 6, out at 6:30, drive to train station, catch 6:50 train to Hoboken, take PATH train (which was recently targeted for a terrorist bombing, oh joy!) under the Hudson River to World Trade Center, walk a few blocks, arrive at work 8:30-8:45. Repeat in reverse at 4:30-if I'm lucky enough to get out on time...
Add to that a substantial coating of snow and ice on my steep driveway every week in winter plus the gray, cloudy days, and I've had enough of living here. Let's not forget that my 8K in taxes doesn't guarantee my street gets plowed so I can get to the train, either. Last year-no plows till 11am on some mornings... If you do get to work the plows at the train station plow you in while your are at work. Get off train at 6:30pm, slog thru snow to buried car, dig out, home by 7. Parking permit $300/yr, train pass $250/mo, digging your car out in 10 degree cold after a 2 hour commute-priceless.
I'm hoping to trade all of this for the time to eat breakfast and dinner with my kids...before it's too late. BTW, there are thousands of others who do this commute, or longer, each day. It is a sad commentary on the quality of life here.
Id last 1 day in that environment. Regarding taxes, we are both in the high end bracket. Westchester County ranks #1 in the nation and my Cty, Onondaga is #3 and we are 5 hrs north of NYC
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I'll give you my opinion, for what it is worth.
Possible relocation from MD to NC
