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We live in NYC and want to move to a place with GOOD PUBLIC SCHOOLS, less expensive real estate and good quality of life for our family. Good weather a plus. Thinking about San Francisco suburbs, Denver and Chapel HIll area. We know SF well, know some about Denver but very little about Chapel Hill/triangle area. Husband works in technology.
- Why should we consider Chapel Hill/Triangle area?
- How are the schools?
- Why should we not consider it?
The schools in Chapel Hill are excellent. It's a very nice mid-sized town, good community. Some people say everything is connected to the University, but I do not find that to be the case. Unless walking down Franklin St. it's easy to forget you're even in a college town. It's also really nice to be able to take advantage of everything a college town has to offer when you want to.
We chose Chapel Hill over the rest of the Triangle for 3 reasons:
1. It's known to be a liberal outpost. We like that.
2. We could find neighborhoods which were "more established" (as in, not brand spanking new which we felt lacks character). Yes, you can find this ITB (which is gorgeous btw, but my husband is a biker (bicycles) and to get out and do a 100 mile bike would mean driving outside the beltline to even begin. He can start from his front door in Chapel Hill.
3. Much smaller town=much less traffic. I never deal with "traffic" unless heading out of Chapel Hill and toward...Raleigh.
4. Schools are excellent and they don't redistrict all the time like Wake.
OK, so...those are all good. Now, that said, we had to move to somewhere in the mid-Atlantic region for my husband's work and we chose Chapel Hill. We had choices, and really like CH. However...if Marin county or other SF suburbs (Palo Alto, Los Altos, etc) had been an option we would have moved there over here in a heartbeat.
Marin has great schools (as do Palo Alto and Los Altos). Of course it is WAY cheaper here. For $800K in Chapel Hill you have a really nice house. For that there?? Not so much...I used to live in Palo Alto and love it.
I'd move to Denver over here too, but again...that's more about what you like to do for activities, etc. My husband is from Denver and we visit quite often. It's just gorgeous there, the hiking opportunites are amazing, you get great snow in winter but winter doesn't last too long, etc.
We're "outdoorsy" so I can say for sure that I would choose SF area or Denver area over Chapel Hill if work were there and if spending $1-2million on a house weren't a problem (at least for SF. Denver is cheaper). But...if you decide against those, Chapel Hill is a very open, diverse, welcoming community with great schools and good weather.
I see from your original post you want less expensive than NYC. We looked to buy in the SF area and the only areas we considered to have great schools were the ones I mentioned above and I would not consider them less expensive than NYC (where we also lived!! We've moved a lot!)
Marin has great schools? Marin Catholic maybe but I lived for many years in the Bay Area and never ran past a quality public school. Granted we didn't have kids when we lived there but still...
I think out of the three areas mentioned--and just based on OVERALL opinion, Chapel Hill has the best schools.
We have never been to Chapel HIll, so I think the next move would be a visit and a tour with a realtor to see the options. I checked a few websites and found the prices on houses in CH to vary a lot. Why is that so? Are all schools pretty equal or is it because some areas of the town are more desirable? Thanks for all the help!
We have never been to Chapel HIll, so I think the next move would be a visit and a tour with a realtor to see the options. I checked a few websites and found the prices on houses in CH to vary a lot. Why is that so? Are all schools pretty equal or is it because some areas of the town are more desirable? Thanks for all the help!
I don't think there are any "bad" schools in Chapel Hill, they are uniformly good schools....
If you are seeing much variation in price, it is probably due to some homes having a " Chapel Hill address" but really situated in Orange County or Durham or Pittsboro....it can get confusing. Many realtor sites will link the schools associated with a given property, if a house seems very nice but much lower in price than similar homes, check the school assignments, chances are they are not assigned to Chapel Hill/Carrboro schools.
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