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I have been reading through your forum and have found everyone's advice very helpful. Like many others in this forum I will be relocating to the Triangle area. I am leaving Boston to work at Duke Medical Center in a few months. My wife and I are very excited about our move there. We, like many others are looking for some relocation advice. I will be there for at least one year and hopefully longer, so initially we intend to rent a house. We have 2 young children, so the school systems are not as important a consideration at this time. My good friends in Raleigh want me to move there, but I think the commute to the medical center may be less than ideal from Raleigh given the distance and traffic congestion (from what I have heard). I was also told by another friend to look in the Hope Valley Farms and Woodcroft communities of Durham.
I am also very interested in Chapel Hill, having visited there a few times I know it is a beautiful city. Ideally, I want a safe, fun, reasonably quiet neighborhood with young families that is within a baby-stoller walk of a coffee shop, a local shop or two and playground/park for the kids. As much as I would love to be close to UNC campus and the Franklin Street shops, I don't want to end up next door to a college "animal house".
My wife and I are very excited to be moving to the area. The change in climate will certainly be an added bonus. I am a college basketball fanatic and in my opinion there is no better place in the country for this than Tobacco Road! We have heard wonderful things about the area, and my friends from Raleigh assure me that once I move there I will never want to leave North Carolina! We are excited about that possibility!
Any help that anyone can provide regarding the following questions or any other issues I may not have considered would be greatly appreciated.
1. Are there a decent number of home rentals available in the Durham and Chapel Hill areas or just apartments? When is the greatest turnover/availability (summer vs. winter)?
2. Between Southwest Durham (i.e. Hope Valley Farms and Woodcroft communities) and Chapel Hill would a new-comer to the area rather be in one versus the other?
3. Are there houses for rent in the Hope Valley Farm/Woodcroft communities or just homes for sale?
4. Is the commute to Duke Medical Center horrible from Chapel Hill despite the short distance between the two?
5. Are there nice neighborhoods to live in adjacent to Duke University/Medical Center?
6. Are there streets/neighborhoods near UNC that are not solely college housing, but Chapel Hill families?
7. Given what I am looking for, should I be looking more in Meadowmont or Carborro areas instead of near UNC?
8. Are there other areas near Chapel Hill or Durham that I am not considering but should be?
9. Any advice on real estate places specializing in home rentals.
My wife and I are going to be flying down there in December to get a better feel for the area and I am hoping to compile a list of neighborhoods to visit based on input from this forum.
Alot of questions but what I know in a summary....
You are definitely right...commuting to Duke Med from Raleigh would be more painful than sitting naked on a barbed wire fence and following it up with a bath in lemon juice. Don't let your friends talk you into it.
Obviously the easiest commute would be from Durham itself. Chapel Hill wouldn't be as bad as Raleigh, but there is a fair amount of back-and-forth traffic between the two cities...commuters from one to the other, due to the proximity. One would think two cities so close together would have more roads linking them than they do.
The whole area is full of rental houses...craigslist had dozens weekly. Another place to look is local zines like the Independent Weekly (indyweek.com), and Triangle.com.
Believe it or not, you'll probably find more nice rental houses in the neighborhoods closer to Duke Med than you would in the more outlying suburban neighborhoods you mentioned (like Hope Valley, Woodcroft, Meadowmont, and so forth). Areas like Trinity Park, Ninth Street, Watts-Hillandale, Old West Durham and Northgate would be a very easy commute to Duke Med and do have lots of nice rentals.
But Chapel Hill/Carrboro are great too...just do remember that the housing there is more tilted to college kids (although not as much in Carrboro) so you'll need to keep your eyes wide open in regard to that.
Thank you for your helpful insight RaleighRob. I will keep my eye on Craigslist and check out the online zines. That is a good resource I had not thought about. I will also consider the neighborhoods in Durham that you listed. Many thanks.
Russell227, your comment about Durham's government caught my eye. How or why are they considered "amazing"? I ask b/c I'm also looking to relocate to NC.....possible to Durham.....and was curious about what you meant. Most of what I read on these boards re: Durham are negative comments about drugs and crime, which is deflating to me since I'm considering that area. Thanks in advance for explaining....
My daughter in law worked at the medical center and lived in north west Durham. It was an older home with 3 bedrooms and nice wood floors in a safe area only 12 minutes from Duke. If I remember correctly they paid under $1000/month.
Sadly, I don't feel there are any safe areas of Durham. I live in Cary & never travel alone or shop in the area - NEVER. I am still stigmatized about a brutal robbery/murder that occured while my high school daughters were attending a graduation party on Alston Avenue. Three thugs kicked down the patio door and ordered everyone on the floor. Their friend, didn't comply and instead pretended to be asleep on the sofa. He was shot in the back of his head. The crime in that city is horrifying. A co-worker of mine lived in a very nice neighborhood in Durham and was robbed at gun point in the middle of the night. In less than 2 weeks, she moved to Cary. Please check out the crime stats & the reputation of the schools before you make your decision.
Sadly, I don't feel there are any safe areas of Durham. I live in Cary & never travel alone or shop in the area - NEVER. I am still stigmatized about a brutal robbery/murder that occured while my high school daughters were attending a graduation party on Alston Avenue. Three thugs kicked down the patio door and ordered everyone on the floor. Their friend, didn't comply and instead pretended to be asleep on the sofa. He was shot in the back of his head. The crime in that city is horrifying. A co-worker of mine lived in a very nice neighborhood in Durham and was robbed at gun point in the middle of the night. In less than 2 weeks, she moved to Cary. Please check out the crime stats & the reputation of the schools before you make your decision.
Sorry to hear about that. From what I'm reading on this board, people are making Durham out to be the second coming of Fallujah. I've looked at the Crime Mapper on the Durham PD's website and you can obiviously see where the majority of the crimes occur. But isn't it just like any other city or is it just over the top? I'm asking b/c I've never been there before but reading this board, one would get the impression that if you step foot in Durham you going to have something happen to you immediately.
Sorry to hear about that. From what I'm reading on this board, people are making Durham out to be the second coming of Fallujah. I've looked at the Crime Mapper on the Durham PD's website and you can obiviously see where the majority of the crimes occur. But isn't it just like any other city or is it just over the top? I'm asking b/c I've never been there before but reading this board, one would get the impression that if you step foot in Durham you going to have something happen to you immediately.
You are right. I never worry about safety whenever I'm in Durham. I know where the good areas are and the bad ones are. Just like I know the good and bad areas of Raleigh or any other city that I spend time in. It's just a matter of common sense to take the time to find out that kinda stuff.
Sure bad things are going to happen...but to stigmatize an entire city based on isolated incidents here or there is just a bit much. Sure some towns are 'safer" than other cities, but they tend to have less to offer in other ways as well.
Besides...if everyone looks at a crime rate and say "I'm not going there cuz it's got crime" then you have a continuous cycle...good people won't move there and make it better. And that doesn't help anything!
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Hillsborough?
