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Hi everyone! We have been down once and it looks like Apex has what it is we seek. Good Schools, tons of work potential, good neighborhoods, low crime and a familiar twang.
My questions are these:
Schools? I keep reading about redistricting? Is there a safer place to be to avoid this? How badly does this affect the kids? If I pick a school that looks incredible on paper such as Baucum what are the chances we will be redistricted to something that looks less on paper such as reedy creek.
Obviosly we are moving to do whats best for our family and here on Long Island the schools are terrible unless you live in atleast a 500k house, that house will only have 2,000 sq ft if your lucky. On paper my school district had 60% at passing level.
Would you consider the tests there to be equal to the NYS competency tests?
Work? My husband is an IT director. How long would it be for him to find a job that paid over 75k annual. From what I understand most specialize over there, he is more of a jack of all knows a good amount of everything. At this time he is working on his sequel 2005 cert. and has worked extensively with oracle and crystal reports. Any clue how long he will be out of work... Approximate ideas of course. An example is if my husband lost his job here now it could potentially take him a year and a half to get a job unless he caved and went back into manhattan. Which is a minimum of a 2 hr commute.
Housing what does everyone think of Sawyers Mill? Looks nice with above average schools. Not to mention the cost of housing looks good.
Another subdivision I like is West Lake, I enjoy what it looks like it reminds me of a neighborhood over here. Any other subdivisions suggested? My son is 3 so schools are our main motivator. We originally were shooting for Cary but it is very busy for us and the area I really loved the most was down kildaire farm road closer to Holly Springs. But the schools dont look as good on paper as in Apex.
Taxes????? What car tax??? How does that work??? You buy a car and pay taxes on it EVERY YEAR?? Am I right? How do they get away with that?
Granted the taxes on the house are very low but eventually that will go us, it looks like it is already going up a steady 100 a year. Coming from suffolk county that isnt much but it still shows inflation. Which is necessary to school all the new kids. How do you feel about the tax situation there?
Many of your questions are very broad. You will do better to search the forums than to have people just throw subdivision names at you.
Concerning Car Tax- North Carolina is a personal property tax state. (Connecticut is as well among others). When you purchase a car in NC you pay a "road use tax" of 3% instead of a sales tax. I believe Suffolk County charges you 8.5% on a car purchase-nearly 3 times as much-on a 30,000 car thats $1,650 MORE in sales tax when you drive off the lot.
You receive a yearly bill for tax on the value of your car (or boat if you have one-anything with a Registration attached to it). On the same $30,000 car the first years tax will run about $350-it's tax deductible, unlike the sales tax when you buy a car. As the car ages/depreciates the tax is reduced.
Low taxes are not a reason to move here, although compared to Long Island we have it a lot better. Once again I find the fact that a Long Islander is complaining about our taxes here to be kind of silly.
Please do not misinterpret the following information as bashing-
Sawyer's Mill homes are average construction at best. Good Square Footage for the money but not really a standout neighborhood. Look out for power lines.
The Park at West Lake is much nicer IMO although there is the issue of the water treatment facility adjacent.
Neither of those two locations are particularly easy commutes to RTP which is your Husband's most likely employment location in the IT field.
I just bought a new car yesterday at 8.65% sales tax. We hope to move around September. Guess I will be paying more then I hoped. I wasnt saying that your tax system was silly, just that I didnt understand it. Knowing what you told me now it makes a great deal of sense. Now I know what the money is used for. Here we just get nailed on property taxes. It includes everything and sales tax is seperate.
I wrote the wrong other subdivision it is WestPark. I got confused I have been seeing so many houses for sale in the other.
Is it true about the mobile schools? Is there a plan to fix the issue. If anyone knows a website that is covering the topic it would be a huge help.
Wake county is building 19 new schools and remodeling others. The mobile classrooms are not horrid...they are used around the country...nothing new for Wake County. (The schools system we came from up North recently closed two schools due to shrinking enrollment...and added two mobile classrooms to the remaining schools....so there you go.)
Please look around this forum (the search engine is a good tool) as well as the WCPSS web site and the News & Observer's.
Thank you. Im not familiar with mobile schools they are not utilized here. We just continue to pack our kids into our already overcrowded schools increase taxes and have nothing new to show for it
I've lived in Apex for 10 years now(Shepherd's Vineyard). Great neighborhood, includes a library and central to everything. My kids have attended the same schools from elementary(Apex) to High school(Apex) with, you guessed it, Apex Middle thrown in. I don't think you'll go wrong in either Cary or Apex when it comes to schools.
You have never had a problem with being redistricted? If you were redistricted do you have any clue where too? I've done my studying up Apex schools are great on paper, which is what I am looking for. The kids in my school district do poorly on the NYS competency exams. That doesnt mean its a bad school it just means Parents do not put as much of an emphasise on learning. We have school districts on long Island that do incredible on the competencies, but those school districts are untouchable along with the taxes. I want to move into a school district were the test scores are good and there is a strong focus on education and family. I come from a family of blue class workers with little to no education. My husband and myself pushed ourselves to do better and want to make it so its just what you do, instead of a struggle like it was for myself. Of all my friends only 1 went to college after HS. I didnt do it til I was 25 same with my husband.
No, my kids have never been redistricted, not in the 10 years we've lived in Apex. Now, if you buy further out from the schools you might be more likely to be moved. However, and this is important in my view, the schools that Apex kids have been redistricted to are typically brand new and still very good. The bigger issue, if it matters to you, is your kids are more likely to attend year-round schools. Some folks really freak over that. I think they are great. Most of the schools in Apex(not counting high schools) have been converted to year-round. Apex Elementary is still traditional.
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Jokes on me
