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My family and I are moving to Charlotte this spring and are currently looking to build a home (price range is $450-$550). With the little research we've done online, we've been drawn to the Tega Cay and Fort Mill area. We are a family of 4 with a 3 and 1 year old. We're looking for a neighbor with other kids. We're an active family who love to be outside, so I like the idea of being close to the lake too. We'd like to be within a short drive to good restaurants. FYI I will be commuting to uptown Monday - Thursday.
I'd love to hear any suggests and/or warnings about neighbors and areas to live. Thank you so much for the help.
Look into Springfield, Baxter Village, the new builds in Eppington South and The Reserve at Gold Hill - all in Fort Mill.
In Tega Cay you can check out Lakeshore - I know several people who live in that development and love it.
There are also many developments in that price range off of Doby's Bridge Road in Fort Mill, but I'm less familiar with the names of developments since I don't live in that area.
Doby's Bridge Road developments if you want to build are Riverchase, Waterside at the Catawba and the newest section of Massey. They all should have something in that price range.
All of Fort Mill is growing so it really just depends on if you would rather know what is around you right now or if you want to take your chances with what might be on its way. The South Doby's Bridge Road area is somewhat sparse when it comes to restaurants right now but I have a feeling that will change and 521 is booming.
My family and I are moving to Charlotte this spring and are currently looking to build a home (price range is $450-$550). With the little research we've done online, we've been drawn to the Tega Cay and Fort Mill area. We are a family of 4 with a 3 and 1 year old. We're looking for a neighbor with other kids. We're an active family who love to be outside, so I like the idea of being close to the lake too. We'd like to be within a short drive to good restaurants. FYI I will be commuting to uptown Monday - Thursday.
I'd love to hear any suggests and/or warnings about neighbors and areas to live. Thank you so much for the help.
I spent over two years looking at houses in the Fort Mill-Tega Cay area as well as Waxhaw/Marvin. My budget started out in the low 300s but by the end was looking at spending up to the low 400s...so a bit lower budget than yours but I still think my experience will be applicable. I went back and forth about the merits of each area but by the last 12 or so months I had narrowed down to four subdivisions in SC. They were Baxter, Lakeshore, Reserve at Gold Hill, and Springfield in that order. I ended up buying in the Reserve at Gold Hill...it was just the "right" house for my family. My wife works uptown at the Duke Energy center and her commute is normally around 30-40 minutes...she works 7:30am-4:30pm. If we would have bought in Lakeshore/Tega Cay, probably would be another 10 minutes on top of that.
I really liked the Tega Cay area. For me the pros to Tega/Lakeshore are: access to the lake, "small town" feel, local elementary school is walkable in most cases, upscale demographic, bike/walking trails throughout, and no subdivision HOA. The cons: property taxes are much higher than unicorp York county, one way in and out of the peninsula, TC police force (with their speed traps), and added time on commute to get anywhere (traffic, traffic, traffic!).
Baxter is just awesome but you have to pay the price to live there. The first time I drove thru I was like "who would pay those crazy prices to live here?" Then I walked thru the neighborhood and just loved it. You can walk to the local elementary school in most cases as well as some restaurants, YMCA, bars, etc. The only real drawbacks for me are the close proximity of the houses and the price per sq ft being so much higher than the rest of York County. With 450-550k, you can get a great house in there though.
If I had 450-550k to spend, I would also look at Eppington South which is the neighborhood next to mine. It's a very upscale neighborhood with houses up to $1m. The location is good although traffic on Gold Hill can get rough at times.
The most helpful thing for me was to get out of the car and actually walk thru neighborhoods that I was getting serious about...sometimes changed my opinion. Good luck on your search.
GREAT information. Thanks!! We're making a trip to the area next week, so this will give us a great starting point. In addition to these areas, we're also looking at Brayden - The Woodlands neighbor.
With your children the qualities of Baxter would seem to elevate it to the top of the heap. It's a wonderful community for children, very safe from a crime perspective and feeds to outstanding schools as they get a little older. Baxter is built out and is in very high demand for a variety of reasons- if you can find a home meeting your needs in Baxter- it would behoove you to have a look.
I would also add a note regarding Springfield has it hasn't been addressed in this thread. That is the traffic backup between I-77 and it is terrible- at both rush hours and even during the lunch hour at times. With the continued building growth around that immediate area (including a huge Del Webb community) this issue will only worsen. While the exit to Baxter gets backed up over the noon hour as folks head there for lunch options, Baxter residents- generally speaking- avoid any crippling traffic in and around the community. Now, once one gets on I-77 in the morning...welcome to major traffic as you commute Uptown.
160 is really becoming a mess a key times during the day around Baxter, Lowes, etc. With all of the recent building of new neighborhoods and the commercial developement at Kingsly, this area will continue to increase the traffic demands on the area.
The good thing about the loaction of Baxter is that you are so close to I77, you only have to deal with the 160 mess for a short time.
Good luck on your search...
Be sure to check out road improvement plans for the upcoming year or two. They will be completely re-doing the interchange at Gold Hill/77, so if you can buy closer to the 160 or Sutton Road interchanges and those are not scheduled for construction, you may be better off. I hope to be gone from Fort Mill before they start all of that stuff, it's going to be a HOT mess.
Yes, it will be a hot mess during construction. But once the renovation to the interchange is done, it's going to be fabulous and ease congestion considerably. I'm willing to put up with a longer commute for a year in order to spend the 18 years after that with an even shorter commute than I have now.
Be sure to check out road improvement plans for the upcoming year or two. They will be completely re-doing the interchange at Gold Hill/77, so if you can buy closer to the 160 or Sutton Road interchanges and those are not scheduled for construction, you may be better off. I hope to be gone from Fort Mill before they start all of that stuff, it's going to be a HOT mess.
At some point the I77 and Sutton Road interchange will be under construction, I'm sure. Right now they are putting in lights like what is currently at the I77 and Gold Hill interchange. It's just a matter of time for Sutton Road.
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