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My wife is getting tired of the rat race in San Francisco and is considering starting her own business - I work remotely, so my job can go anywhere with a good phone connection and good hi speed internet. We really like "city life", but would also consider someplace remote as long as it's not cookie cutter suburbia and we could have a bit of land space between houses that isn't too wooded (bug/vermin riddled).
What we're looking for:
3-BR 1.5+ BA, nothing over 2k sq ft with a basement and garage. Since we'll be starting out only on my salary, we need to look around $1k/mo at the most for a rental property.
Is this doable in the triangle area in a nice, low crime part of town? (we're used to vagrants and minor stuff in SF, but violent crime stuff - notsomuch). We would also consider a smaller town with a nice walkable city center nearby if it works better for our budget.
Neither of us fit the profile of a typical SF resident as we both grew up in the South, and we're looking for a place that is close to both our families (KY and S FL) among a group of people who love basketball and hate snow as much as I do. Seems like RDU is one of the best places for us from both a potential career and lifestyle perspective and it gets us out of the rat race of CA living.
We only have 1 car right now, so is it possible to get around locally via public transport, or is that pretty much a joke? We've seen lots of really nice homes priced around $200k, which seems like a bargain to us - are there many questionable areas of the triangle, or is the COL really that good?
Are there plenty of places to play basketball for people like me who are pushing 40?
My wife is getting tired of the rat race in San Francisco and is considering starting her own business - I work remotely, so my job can go anywhere with a good phone connection and good hi speed internet. We really like "city life", but would also consider someplace remote as long as it's not cookie cutter suburbia and we could have a bit of land space between houses that isn't too wooded (bug/vermin riddled).
What we're looking for:
3-BR 1.5+ BA, nothing over 2k sq ft with a basement and garage. Since we'll be starting out only on my salary, we need to look around $1k/mo at the most for a rental property.
Is this doable in the triangle area in a nice, low crime part of town? (we're used to vagrants and minor stuff in SF, but violent crime stuff - notsomuch). We would also consider a smaller town with a nice walkable city center nearby if it works better for our budget.
Neither of us fit the profile of a typical SF resident as we both grew up in the South, and we're looking for a place that is close to both our families (KY and S FL) among a group of people who love basketball and hate snow as much as I do. Seems like RDU is one of the best places for us from both a potential career and lifestyle perspective and it gets us out of the rat race of CA living.
We only have 1 car right now, so is it possible to get around locally via public transport, or is that pretty much a joke? We've seen lots of really nice homes priced around $200k, which seems like a bargain to us - are there many questionable areas of the triangle, or is the COL really that good?
Are there plenty of places to play basketball for people like me who are pushing 40?
3-BR 1.5+ BA, nothing over 2k sq ft with a basement and garage. Since we'll be starting out only on my salary, we need to look around $1k/mo at the most for a rental property.
Is this doable in the triangle area in a nice, low crime part of town?
Not very likely. Rents are in the teen numbers for 3-BR houses, eg $1100 and up. Further, most houses do not have basements. Often they don't have garages in that low price range.
You might look on Craiglist for rentals in Durham or Carrboro. Garner and Clayton may have cheaper rents also. Anywhere with a walkable downtown is going to be a premium price.
You might get by with one car if the person, but the public transit is limitied.
We really like "city life", but would also consider someplace remote as long as it's not cookie cutter suburbia and we could have a bit of land space between houses that isn't too wooded (bug/vermin riddled).
Well, I'll tell you, when I read the above, I thought "nope". They won't like it here. There is lots of cookie-cutter suburbia and we do have our share of bugs. BUT when I read this below...
Quote:
Originally Posted by ServoMiff
Neither of us fit the profile of a typical SF resident as we both grew up in the South, and we're looking for a place that is close to both our families (KY and S FL) among a group of people who love basketball and hate snow as much as I do.
I thought, well, maybe so. If you're originally from the South and have family in KY and S FL you know we have bugs. Sometimes we get folks who move here from California or other places and they get all squicked out about there being any bugs at all. It's the South. There are bugs.
And it's North Carolina and we love basketball. From a fan perspective you can't pick a much better place. We get colder than SF in the winter and do see the occasional snow, but KY probably sees a little more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ServoMiff
Are there plenty of places to play basketball for people like me who are pushing 40?
For adult rec b-ball games, I'm not sure. It's never something I've looked into. I know there are usually people — some young adult, some probably in their 30s, some in their teens — playing at the court near my house, just pick-up games.
I'm sure you can google as well as anyone, but I think I have read about some adult rec leagues in the area too.
You can find areas that are non-cookie cutter, too, but one of the selling points about this area is how "family-friendly" it is, especially areas in Wake County like Cary and Apex, etc. Clean, low-crime suburbs are a big part of that appeal.
Downtown Raleigh and downtown Durham offer a little more city feel. Chapel Hill and Carrboro have a completely free bus service that goes all over town. Raleigh and Durham have free bus lines in their downtown areas. We're working on light rail, but not there yet.
I think you'd better come have a look and see what you think.
Well many people who haven't been to this area are surprised by how much trees we have. In Downtown Cary, you see a lot of people walking around to the local restaurants, stores, theatres, and more. Downtown Raleigh is actually pretty walkable too. The Triangle area is known for being kind and welcoming to newcomers and everyone in general. Cary and Apex are one of the top 10 safest towns in North Carolina according to safewise.com so that is not a problem. You can park your car and leave your windows and doors unlocked with no problem. There are many friendly neighborhoods with kids running around and riding bikes. A thing here is that everybody knows and watches out for everybody. Traffic up here is good but many people in the eastern side of the county work at RTP (one of the largest research parks in the world) so in the morning in can be slow at times but otherwise traffic is not an issue. I don't know how heavy traffic on I-280, I-80, US-101, I-580, I-880 or I-980 is but I am sure it is worse than here. We do have one of the only tolled roads in the state and that is NC 147 (Morrisville to Durham) and NC 540 (Apex, Cary, Morrisville). The interstates here in the triangle are:
Interstate 40-Provides access to the coast and to Asheville, Greensboro, Chapel Hill (A college town, home of UNC), Durham and Raleigh and RDU (An int'l airport 5 min away from Morrisville/Cary)
Interstate 540-An almost complete loop around wake county (part of it is NC 540) and provides access to Brier Creek, Morrisville, North and East Raleigh, Wake Forest (City 20 min north of Raleigh) and Knightdale and RDU
Interstate 440- A bypass that circles the inner part of Raleigh
Interstate 85-Provides access to Richmond VA, Atlanta GA, Durham, Greensboro, Charlotte (Largest city in NC, population of 800,000), Spartanburg SC, Greenville SC
NC 147-The southern part is a toll, provides access to Durham (Downtown),
Interstate 495-provides access to I-95 (45 min from Cary), Fayetteville, Rocky Mount, Wilson
US 1-Provides acess to Southern Pines, Sanford
US 64-Major east west route in central Wake County, Provides access to Asheboro (NC Zoo), Pittsboro, Greenville NC,
Yes we do have lots of parades for Christmas and we have a haunted trail walk for Halloween. We have plenty other festivals for holidays. Every year the Town of Morrisville has a Spring Fling which is a huge festival where they close down roads and it's basically like a town carnival. We also host the East meets West festival every year too. Every Christmas we have an annual Christmas tree lighting. Cary also hosts a lot of community events and parades too. They even have showings of movies every month at the Koka Booth Ampitheatre. Around here everything is less than a 15 minute drive. There are nice movie theatres everywhere:
AMC 17 (AMC)-Southpoint Mall
Parkside Town Commons Stadium 11 & Xtreme (Franks CineBowl and Grille)-Cary
Park West 14 (Stone Theatres)-Cary
Brier Creek 14 (Regal)-Brier Creek (Brier Creek is a shopping center in North Raleigh that is referred to as a town)
There are many local book stores although we don't have Books a Million in the area, we do have Barnes and Nobles:
Barnes and Nobles-Southpoint Mall
Barnes and Nobles-Cary Towne Center
Barnes and Nobles-Brier Creek
my personal favorites:
Smithfields Chicken and BBQ-Morrisville
Georgina's Pizzeria-Morrisville
Smokey's BBQ Shack-Morrisville
Greek Fiesta-Cary
Randy's Pizza-Locations all over Triangle
Zayka Indian Cuisine-Brier Creek (We do have a growing Indian population)
We have a lot of malls here and here are a few along with ones I have mentioned before:
North Hills-Raleigh
Crabtree Valley Mall-Raleigh
Southpoint Mall-Durham
Northgate Mall-Durham
Cary Towne Center-Cary
Triangle Town Center-Northeast Raleigh
Crossroads Plaza-Apex/Cary Border
Outlet Malls:
Tanger Outlet Center-Mebane (Outside of Greensboro, 45 min drive from Cary)
Carolina Premium Outlets-Smithfield (In Johnston County to the south, 45 min drive from Cary)
Morrisville Outlet Mall-RDU Airport (Closed, being made into a Chinatown in the future)
As far as indoor play areas go:
Defy Gravity-Morrisville (Indoor Trampoline Arena)
Frankies FunPark-Durham (Indoor Arcade w/ rollercoasters, mini-golf, and go-karts)
Adventure Landing-North Raleigh (Similar to Frankies but bigger)
Triangle Rock Climbing-Morrisville/Cary Border (Indoor Rock Climbing)
PlayNation-Morrisville (Indoor Bouncyhouses with slides and treehouses)
There are many many parks in the Triangle:
Falls Lake RC Center-Durham
Bond Park RC Center-Cary (basketball, playgrounds, trail)
Church Street Park-Morrisville (trail, tennis, track, playground)
Morrisville Park-Morrisville (baseball, tennis, cricket, trails, playground, basketball)
Lake Crabtree RC Center-Morrisville
Apex Community Park-Apex (kayaking, boating, fishing)
Hunter Street Park-Apex
As far as religion, there are churches here but since we have people from all over who practice Christianity, Judaism, Sikh Religion, Buddhism, Hinduism and more. People don't really ask if you go to church since there are many people with many religions they practice. Some people see that the south is some religious old-fashioned place. That's not how we are! I do recommend the Triangle.
Please quit copy and pasting this to every thread.
I grew up in Louisville and my wife in southeastern FL and we lived for 5 years in Orlando, so we know there's bugs!
With no basements I guess there's not a bunch of tornadoes? We would always get them in KY, and I was used to homes of all values having basements.
We'll certainly come by and visit in the coming months.
Tell me about the most desirable areas in the triangle to live in (not necessarily the "rich" part, but the nice and affordable part). We can compromise on size a little bit if the area fits our personality better. We don't have kids, so wherever singles and dual income no kid households (that aren't students) live might be in our wheelhouse.
For value and good location, I'd consider Garner for renting a home. It's a throw-back town for the Raleigh area in terms of maintaining a good amount of its Southern roots/culture. It's also one of the most affordable areas in Wake County. While it's almost all suburbia, the homes are often surrounded by heavily wooded lots. The good news about much of Garner is how close it is to downtown Raleigh. So, while its not immediate, the center of the city isn't that far away at all.
I grew up in Louisville and my wife in southeastern FL and we lived for 5 years in Orlando, so we know there's bugs!
With no basements I guess there's not a bunch of tornadoes? We would always get them in KY, and I was used to homes of all values having basements.
We'll certainly come by and visit in the coming months.
Tell me about the most desirable areas in the triangle to live in (not necessarily the "rich" part, but the nice and affordable part). We can compromise on size a little bit if the area fits our personality better. We don't have kids, so wherever singles and dual income no kid households (that aren't students) live might be in our wheelhouse.
Raleigh has been hit by two tornadoes in the past 25 years, in 1988 and 2011. We do get violent thunderstorms, but it's not "tornado alley" like the Central US. But that's not why there aren't many basements here; it's because the soil is mostly red clay and not good for basements.
There are plenty of neighborhoods in the area that fit your description; best is to plan a visit and look around. The Raleigh/Cary/Durham area is very suburban, but it would depend on where your wife found employment as far as commute etc since there is no need to have a particularly long commute here since there are SO many suburban neighborhoods around here with very similar characteristics.
As others have said public transportation is very poor here compared to big cites or even smaller cities elsewhere; it's a very spread-out area. Even more reason to know where she would be working before worrying about a neighborhood to live in.
What other cities are you scoping out?
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