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Hi there!
I'm a 40ish single mom thinking of moving to Cary from central NY. My ex husband works there 50% of the time and likes it much better than NY. My main goal is to enable my kids to spend more time with dad, but it may be a new leaf for me also.
I'm a school librarian in need of a job, the dating scene here is worse than the job market, and I never did like NY weather from November to April!
I grew up in Fayetteville but I have no knowledge of Cary other than the aspects my ex likes: townhomes and strip malls! I'm looking for a universityesque neighborhood where I can walk to the grocery and library, but still drive to the conveniences. OMG, I would even ride public transit as long as it was safe. My kids need performing arts opportunities, Girl Scouts, good schools, and friendly kids to be around. We are Unitarian Universalists, if that gives you an idea of who we are. I like gardening and hiking and I drive a Subaru Forester! I do not shop at 'the mall'. The style of housing is not as important as the warmth of the community...and I don't want to be owned by a mortgage, or household maintenance. And frankly my housing budget will be limited by what I can sell my current home for---here in NY I paid $160K for a 3 bedroom 1.5 bath with a pool and I'm pretty sure that money will not go as far in Wake Co.
We will need to be convenient to my ex in Morrisville, but I need to build my own life as well.
I went to the Wake County School District website but there is too much info even for a teacher to weed through...lots of details but nothing that tells me what neighborhood I need to be in!
If you have any suggestions about where I can begin my search, I'd appreciate it. I would like to engineer this move (and it does feel like an engineering project) before my oldest enters HS in 2 years.
Hi there. I'm not so sure that you'd like Cary. Have you checked out Durham or even Carrboro? Both are reasonably close to Cary / Morrisville. I would suggest Chapel Hill, but it might be a little out of your $$$ range.
We lived in Cary for the first year (after moving to NC from PA). It was nice and clean and all.....very manageable, very lots of good things.....but we found it to be a little boring.....and a little too sterile. We ended up buying a house in SW Durham, and we and really like it. Our neighborhood is very diverse (blacks, whites, Asians, Indians, same-sex couples, biracial couples, etc.), if that's important to you. That type of diversity is something that I didn't find as much in Cary.
I can't remember the specifics in your post, but after reading it, my first thought was....."Uh oh! Tell this woman not to move to Cary". So, I did.
Check out SW Durham. Although that part of Durham is similar to Cary with it being more suburban and it does have lots of shopping, you won't be too far from downtown Durham and Chapel Hill, which it sounds like you would like those areas. Also it's right next door to Morrisville and Raleigh is right there as well. Your money will go further in Durham too. Are townhomes ok? Check out Woodcroft. They have plenty of townhomes in that price range and a few single family homes for under $200,000. It's a bit older as it was primarily built in the 80's/early 90's so there are lots of trees and trails!
you are not the first nc native to wake up in a cold sweat after having a nightmare about living in Cayree. A shot of Makers Mark and six xanax usually put me at ease. Give it a try.
I would not believe the false statements you will hear from many about Cary. We found Cary to be the single greatest town we ever lived in. There are many great things about the town. We are outdoorsy people and Cary really worked well for us. If we were inside people (bars, clubs and the like) then Cary would not be our first choice. Given what you quoted for price and the limited info you provided, I do question if Cary would be for you. However, the best advice is to spend a LOT of time in each town to decide for yourself. Be warned, there is a BIG TIME bash Cary sentiment on this forum which is completely embraced. It's seems to be some sort of game. But god forbid you say anything less that super positive about one of cities here. In the end though, the truth is that every town/city in the Triangle offers IT'S residents great things and can be a great place to live. It all depends on what YOU like. WE absolutely despise city living for us. We much prefer the country style of living. So it would make sense that neither Raleigh and especially Durham would work for us. That does not mean that Raleigh or Durham would not be the absolute best choice for someone else.
Come on down and kick the tires and see what you think.
You might like some of the older neighborhoods closer to downtown Cary. They are walkable and friendly. As others have suggested, I'd also look at Durham, definitely SW Durham and you might be interested in some of the more downtown neighborhoods too. If you don't mind going a little distance from Morrisville (30 min) you might also like Hillsborough.
We lived in Cary for a few months while we house hunted (and settled in Clayton). Its a beautiful town. We're trying to move my MIL down here and that is the area that we think she'll take to, as its more built up than the area we moved to (more country).
Its all about what floats your boat. You have to take a trip here and see it all with your own eyes. We had planned to live in Cary but for what we wanted in a house/lot, we decided to move further (to get more bang for our buck).
Good luck! Cary is one of many towns that I'm sure would fit the bill for your wants and needs.
Lauren
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