Relocating to the Raleigh area... (Cary, Holly Springs: rental, HOA fees, houses)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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My family and I are looking to re locate back to NC. We lived in Raleigh for about 2 years before my son was born, but after that I missed being near my mom and we moved back to NH. Well the winters up here are getting worse and worse each year (I was wearing a hooded sweat shirt in June) and we've decided to head back down south.
We're looking at houses for rent in Knightdale, Raleigh, Cary and possibly Holly Springs. We want to be no more than about 30 minutes or so from North Raleigh where my in-laws live, since I want my kids to be around family.
What are some fun things to do with a 3 year old and a 6 year old in the area? Good spraygrounds? Playgrounds? Hiking trails? Pools? Lakes? Places for day trips like the beach? Things to do in the mountains for the weekend? etc.
In NH, we're about an hour from the beach and about 2 hours from the mountains, and there are lots of lakes around to swim in, so we're used to having lots of nature centered things to do.
2.5 hours to the coast, 2.5-3 hours from mountains.
City and county parks with trails and playgrounds scattered all over Wake County. I live 5 miles north of 540, and have 3 nice parks within a 3-7 minute drive of my house.
Last time we lived down there, we didn't have kids and we didn't venture out too often. We went to the dog park and walked around Lake Lynn and Shelley Lake a lot, but if I remember there was no swimming allowed at either of them.
I'd love some links to anything interesting. That way we can kind of explore the area in advance, online, lol.
Also, we found a really great place in Knightdale that we may end up calling about, can someone tell me about Knightdale? The schools? The neighborhoods, etc?
First, be careful of rental home frauds. Be sure you are really communicating with the owner.
Knightdale is a decent middle class town that has had gang problems but is doing a good job at solving them.
There are some very bad commuting issues depending on where you work and when you travel. be sure to try the commute at the times you will use the roads before signing a lease.
Where do you plan on working? If you work in the RTP area, Clayton is a LONG drive in bad traffic. We looked at house out there over 10 years ago, and it was a 45 minute drive to work, on a Sunday with no traffic. We decided on North Raleigh instead, no regrets. 15-20 minute drive to RTP from 540-Creedmoor Rd area.
There are a lot of websites that rank and rate school by county. We also used this in our latest home search. You can Google school rankings and decide for yourself.
Swimming is allowed in Falls Lake and Jordan Lake in designated swimming areas. There are also city owned pools in most towns, and many neighborhoods have community pools that are paid for in HOA fees.
My husband has applied for 2 jobs so far, one at Rex and one at Holly Hills. He has spoken to and is in the process of getting hired for Holly Hills so I'm assuming he'll be working there. I will probably be applying at my old pet sitting company, so I'll be all over the place.
We basically don't want to be too far out from Raleigh and will move into Northern Raleigh if we can find a place. We've been looking at houses for rent under $1000, they are few and far between for the ones we like, but we have found some. I'd prefer my own yard but if in the end, we can find a really nice town home or duplex, we'd take that too.
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