If you lived here 4 years or more (Raleigh, Cary: real estate market, apartment)

[lovebrentwood]

Originally Posted by Waterboy526

The last few summers have actually been pretty dry by this areas standards. We have lived here 7 years this June. Parts of the Northeast had more heat waves than we did this past year. Newark, NJ got up to 108 and had more days over 100 than Raleigh. No area is perfect, but we love it here for the most part.

Dry? I remember it raining nearly every day here last summer. I guess it was pretty normal, though: http://www.wral.com/weather/page/1934052/

I escaped for four days to upstate New York and the Thousand Islands, and every day was heaven -- I could breathe again, and I didn't want to go inside at all. It was similar to the glorious summers I enjoyed for most of my life.

So the best thing about summers here, as another post-er alluded to is: You can always get out of town! Many people do escape to the Outer Banks or south to the beaches.

You'll probably be happier if you make plans to do the same thing.

[saturnfan]

We came in 1989 from New Orleans so weather was no problem.

What I miss here is good public transit. As we age, our night vision and depth perception decline.

With the horribly designed, unlighted highways here, your ability to go to many great venues disappears.

We once lived in Manhattan and enjoyed the buses and subways.

[BeachBound2012]

We moved here 4-1/2 yrs ago from Maine. My house is being listed next week and I am hoping we can be moved back once school gets out. Hubby is more apprehensive due to the economy, but I am confident it will all work out. I miss family too much and the traffic/heat for me is too much. Its all relative. If you are from bigger cities, the traffic may seem minor, but from where I am in, its horrible. The winters are tough, but I can handle it better than months of heat and humidity.

[carcrazy67]

Moved here from Ohio back in the 70's. Never a moment of regret! Ohio is a good place to be FROM!!!!

[GotHereQuickAsICould]

Still not used to the summers. There are times I nearly faint when I step outside to get the mail. I stay inside mostly.

Love to garden. This is a terrific area to garden if you can mix in enough compost with the clay. Gradually changing to a zone 8. Can garden year round here if you're up to it.

Winters are wonderful. Really more like months and months of fall.

Cost of living is less than where we moved from. Taxes, home prices, utilities, even food prices seem better. Just checked on one of the cost of living calculators web sites. Apparently, we can maintain the same standard of living with 18% less money. Seems about right.

Easy place to fly out of. RDU is easy to navigate and fares are reasonable for the most part.

Nice being able to get to the beach within a few hours.

Love all the birds and the greenery. Got rid of all our houseplants after the first year. Easy enough to see green just by looking out the windows.

Traffic can be a headache. I-40 from Cary to Durham/Chapel Hill is the bane of my existence. Carries a lot of traffic and always seems to be a fair number of idiot drivers zipping in and out. Naturally, this means wrecks with the resulting stop and go traffic. There were three separate wrecks on that stretch this morning. I really must find another way to get to Chapel Hill and Durham.

Even with the summers and the traffic, we still love living here.

[WeLuvNC]

What a nice question.

Overwhelmingly, we do love it here compared to where we lived just prior in Fairfield County, CT. I was a New Englander through and through having lived in ME, MA, CT, NY, NJ, PA.

We didn't expect to live here as long as we have, but we fell in love with the entire state and have been here now for 14 years and counting.

I do miss the rolling hills and being able to routinely see the horizon & fabulous sunrises & sunsets - didn't realize that was a rare sight here in the piedmont with the towering pines and fairly flat. But we go to the mountains on a regular basis to get our sunrise/sunset fix.

When we moved here, I thought it was really weird how many North Carolinians rarely left the state...meaning they work/live/vacation within the same state.

Now, we have become one of those people! if we leave the state, it is usually to visit extended family. When we vacation, we go to NC beaches or the NC mountains b/c they are so fabulous!

And, with NC university/colleges being so great, odds are pretty good that the kids will stay in-state to go to school. yahoo!

[dave in jersey]

Moved here from NJ 6 years ago this month and don't have any plans on moving back anytime soon. We love how everything is so close (concerts, sports, shows, airport). If we wanted to attend those things back in Jersey, we had to drive at least an hour to Philly and 90 minutes to NY. In the 6 years we've been here, we've been to more sporting events (college and pro) than in the 40+ years we lived in NJ. Our property taxes are about 1/3 of what they were, and my wife's salary is just about doubled of what it was in NJ which more than makes up for what I lost. The only family we have close is my BIL who moved to Greensboro 3 years ago, but that's fine. Last time we went back up north, we told everybody that if they wanted to see us every year that they would have to start visiting us, because we were tired of being the ones doing all the traveling. I told them 95 and 85 run both north and south.

[CHTransplant]

Originally Posted by gunni

I didn't even know how to say Raleigh (Rawlee)

Hmmm, I think most folks tend to say it as Rah-Lee.

I'm always a little leery of these "do you like it there" questions. I think you have to understand the particulars of why someone likes a particular area, because the ultimate question isn't whether others like it. It's whether you will like it. Does this area offer what you are looking for?

I've lived in various parts of the country, and the Triangle is among the better places I've lived. But if I really had my druthers, it would not be my top personal choice. (Little things like money, jobs and kids, however, make it the right place for me right now.)

[tompope]

Originally Posted by CHTransplant

...
I'm always a little leery of these "do you like it there" questions. I think you have to understand the particulars of why someone likes a particular area, because the ultimate question isn't whether others like it. It's whether you will like it. Does this area offer what you are looking for?
...

Generally speaking, I agree with you. Certainly the responses to a question as vague as "are you glad you moved to the area?" can't be all that useful to any one person's decision-making, especially if further elaboration isn't requested or offered. But, to be fair, in this particular thread, the OP didn't actually say that he or she was looking for answers that would help them decide whether or not to consider a move to the Triangle. It's natural to infer that, but we don't actually know it to be the case. billy55 hasn't followed up on his or her initial post, and so all we know is what was said in that first post, and it doesn't give any direct indication of why he or she was asking or what they were hoping to accomplish with it. All billy55 did was to throw the broad and vague topic of Triangle relocators' experiences out there, and it's clearly gotten lots of responses. And I think the responses have mostly been interesting and fun, whether or not they're of any particular value to somebody assessing their own situation.

[Francois]

Originally Posted by gunni

Moved here 15 years ago from Midwest for jobs and not knowing a soul here. I didn't even know how to say Raleigh (Rawlee)

Actually, it's RAH-lee, not RAW-lee. Rhymes with "holly".