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Hi everyone,
I live in Greensboro now, but am considering moving towards the mountains. We've been scouring the internet and keep coming back to Brevard. The schools are highly rated which is a big draw for us with a 6 year old and a baby. I'd love any first hand experience about the area. Is it a good place to raise a family? Are the schools good (I know test scores only show so much)? Any experience with the Brevard Elem/Middle/HS vs. Brevard Academy?
Any recs on places to look for a nice rental home for a year or two, until we become settled and familiar enough with the area to buy a house?
How is the community? I really want a place where being "eco friendly" is the norm, not the alternative. I prefer shopping at local shops, eating local food, and being friendly to the environment.
We're actually going to drive out there tomorrow to look around, but we wouldn't be moving until the summer because of our current lease and not wanting to move in the middle of the school year.
If there are other areas we should look into, please let me know! Schools are probably my #1 priority right now. Based on the age difference in my kids, they may be in the same school for Kindy and 5th grade, but that is it...otherwise they'll be split up in different schools, so I want to live somewhere that ALL of the schools are good, not just the elementary school for example.
Brevard is not a place to "raise a family" IMO becuase its a retirement destination and the population is...older. There are few rentals that aren't vacation cabins/condos or taken by the college's small population so that is probably going to be difficult. I lived in rosman just down the road from it for a year and I can NOT see children growing up there and not hating it unless they are heavily involved in a church. There really isn't anything else to do there.
You didn't mention this but I thought it note worthy: Transylvania county is basically a temperate rain forest so it rains there EVERYDAY in the summer and can be extremely humid. May or may not be something you'd like to know.
Hi everyone,
I live in Greensboro now, but am considering moving towards the mountains. We've been scouring the internet and keep coming back to Brevard. The schools are highly rated which is a big draw for us with a 6 year old and a baby. I'd love any first hand experience about the area. Is it a good place to raise a family? Are the schools good (I know test scores only show so much)? Any experience with the Brevard Elem/Middle/HS vs. Brevard Academy?
Any recs on places to look for a nice rental home for a year or two, until we become settled and familiar enough with the area to buy a house?
How is the community? I really want a place where being "eco friendly" is the norm, not the alternative. I prefer shopping at local shops, eating local food, and being friendly to the environment.
We're actually going to drive out there tomorrow to look around, but we wouldn't be moving until the summer because of our current lease and not wanting to move in the middle of the school year.
If there are other areas we should look into, please let me know! Schools are probably my #1 priority right now. Based on the age difference in my kids, they may be in the same school for Kindy and 5th grade, but that is it...otherwise they'll be split up in different schools, so I want to live somewhere that ALL of the schools are good, not just the elementary school for example.
Thank you so much for any insight!
If the OP gets online today, please check Hendersonville, Mills River, etc. or anywhere in Henderson County for raising a family. Brevard is a bit isolated, an adorable town, but more of a retirement area just as Saucy says.
I think Brevard is a lovely town to raise a family. It has a great mix of retires, families, outdoorsy types, and educators, and people who have lived there all their lives.
For a small town it has so much to offer. And it's also convenient to Asheville and the Asheville airport if that is important to you.
I have a friend who is currently looking to move to Brevard and is going to do the same thing as you regarding renting first. They have a realtor/friend who lives in the area and she has been e-mailing them interesting rentals regularly. They have also been looking at short-sale properties and forclosed houses.
Good luck and let us know how your weekend trip goes!
If the OP gets online today, please check Hendersonville, Mills River, etc. or anywhere in Henderson County for raising a family. Brevard is a bit isolated, an adorable town, but more of a retirement area just as Saucy says.
IMO Hendersonville is much more of a retirement mecca than Brevard. And Brevard is so much prettier!
I was on vacation in Savannah GA a few years ago & went to the chamber of commerce. Looking over all the hundreds of brochures I discovered an entire section on great retirement towns. among all of them was a huge number of brochures for Hendersonville NC & Brevard NC. The brochures mentioned all the different over 55 communities, gated communities, condo complexes & all the great golfing communities.
What I found very interesting is as I went all over town, everywhere that had a huge collection of brochures had ones for Hendersonville & Brevard, the same ones I saw in the chamber of commerce
Being a native to the area I have always seen Henderson County as a retirement community for Florida transplants. The other areas I have always thought of as retirement areas is Maggie Valley, Waynesville, Bethel, Little Switzerland, parts of Asheville, Lake Lure, Boone.
This is just my point of view as a native. There are many non retired people that live in those area & you never know, it might be the perfect area for you.
IMO Hendersonville is much more of a retirement mecca than Brevard. And Brevard is so much prettier!
Cannot agree with you on that one Booya. Hendersonville has excellent public schools, I believe I gave the OP the website for the local Blue Ridge newspaper to look up articles, etc. Yes there are retirees here in Hendersonville, but not to the extent they are in Brevard. Plus the access to shopping and family communities here is excelent; and he does not have to be too far out of downtown to have some land, they want a graden etc. Brevard is very pretty, yes, but so is downtown Hendersonville. Mills River is "country" and situated nicely and access to Rt. 280 and I26 is superior compared to Brevard. There was not much available in the Mills River area when we moved here, or we would be there now. We ended up near Penrose, and getting to Hendersonville or Asheville was not convenient. Hendersonville is definitely more family friendly in every way.
Brevard is a place to visit and shop for gifts etc.; it would get tiring for a lot of families. Just my opinion ..
Cannot agree with you on that one Booya. Hendersonville has excellent public schools, I believe I gave the OP the website for the local Blue Ridge newspaper to look up articles, etc. Yes there are retirees here in Hendersonville, but not to the extent they are in Brevard. Plus the access to shopping and family communities here is excelent; and he does not have to be too far out of downtown to have some land, they want a graden etc. Brevard is very pretty, yes, but so is downtown Hendersonville. Mills River is "country" and situated nicely and access to Rt. 280 and I26 is superior compared to Brevard. There was not much available in the Mills River area when we moved here, or we would be there now. We ended up near Penrose, and getting to Hendersonville or Asheville was not convenient. Hendersonville is definitely more family friendly in every way.
Brevard is a place to visit and shop for gifts etc.; it would get tiring for a lot of families. Just my opinion ..
And we appreciate your opinion!
And you are probably spot on. Let me say I am only giving my opinion from a frequent WNC visitor and wanna be resident! Just my observations. And you surely know much more about the school system and road access than I do.
booya
Let me say I am only giving my opinion from a frequent WNC visitor and wanna be resident! Just my observation
I personally can not say anything really about the school system in Henderson County. I do not have children or even know of anyone who has children in that county but as for everything else, as a native to these mtns I have to agree with you that Most of Henderson County & Transylvania County are big on retirees
I am not the one who is thinking of moving there, you are. You are the one who has to decide it is right for you to live there. I recommend that you go there & spend a minimum of 3 days. On the first day you spend looking at housing, checking out neighborhoods & schools, check out apartments, condos, town houses, etc...look to see what you can get for the money, see what kind of neighbors you will have. What is the overall age & feel of the residents, see how you feel about living there.
Day 2 you spend going around to places where you might want to work, talk to the staff or someone in personnel & visit the NC Employment Security Commission, (in Hendersonville it is right off I-26 across the highway from world of clothing & next to Needful Things antique shop. Talk to anyone & everyone who will talk to you about what you can expect to earn & what the job market is like in your field.
Then on the 3rd day spend the entire day going around looking for shops, restaurants, entertainment, sporting events, etc...all the things that you typically like to do. Go to the local grocery stores just to look around, check out prices & merchandise, see if you can buy all the food items you typically buy back home, see if the prices are better or worse. Then look for the shops that you typically like to go to back home, see if you can buy the clothing, housewares, shoes, furniture, salons, jewlery, what ever it is that you like to go out shopping for. Check to see how hard or easy it is to find the things you like to buy & what kind of prices you can expect.
Then look for restaurants you like to eat at. If you like Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Burgers, etc...Drive around looking for those places, then go in & ask for a to go menu, eat at as many as you can but get menu's from the rest, when you go in to get the menu, that will help you get a feel for what kind of place it is. Then the menu will tell you what they serve & how much it will cost.
Live out those 3 days as if you lived here. DO NOT go looking for all the typical touristy things to do, like ride the parkway or visit Biltmore, take tours or go to any of the national parks. If you like the mtns in general then you will love all those thing & you can do those type of things once you move here. But those 3 days should be spent entirely focused on living like this is your home.
Make sure this is where you want to live & make sure you are not going to regret it. You will spend a good deal of money to get yourself here & if things do not turn out to be as good as you thought they might be then you probably wont be able to afford to leave.
I have seen too many people move here without putting the necessary amount of time needed to research what life can be like here, then once they get here they find out that they can not make the money they need, they can't find the kind of home they are use to because cost of living is higher than they expected, they can't find the right kind of school. I have heard it all, there are a multitude of reasons people move here & then find this area not to be as desirable for them as they thought it would be, then they find they can no longer afford to leave & life becomes very hard for them.
Take it from me, there is nothing more miserable than having to live out your life, every day, somewhere you do not want to be & not able to afford to do anything about it & just hoping & praying that one day something will happen that will allow you to be able to get out.
................Take it from me, there is nothing more miserable than having to live out your life, every day, somewhere you do not want to be & not able to afford to do anything about it & just hoping & praying that one day something will happen that will allow you to be able to get out.
People make up their own minds about how a place feels for them; the folks who ask questions are adults, over the legal age and know how to make their own decisions.
Being negative about your own heritage and your own life situation cannot possibly translate an honest opinion about what types of amenities in an area will be attractive to another person.
People come on the forum for an honest opinion of the area for various reasons; not to hear an unhappy native resident constantly whining.
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