My wife and I are looking to relocate to NC with our 5 & 3 yr old. We are in our early 30s from Long Island and are looking to fit in and wondering the following:

1. We want a house with 1 acre plus that is wooded for around $600K.

2. My wife wants to live near a "trendy village type town" with boutiques and quaint stores so she feels like she is at home. It doesn't need to be Saks 5th ave, but a starbucks, gap, designer stores and little cafes would be good. I am not talking downtown city, but small trendy suburb town.

3. We want to be in the best public schools.

4. What specific towns or sections of these areas would most closer fit my criteria around Charolette, Chapel Hill and North Raleigh?

Thanks, Jon- Long Island

Parts of chapel Hill, Huntersville, NC, north of Charlotte.
What will you be doing to support this?

Troll alert! (Albeit a creative one...)

I'm not sure why Diana thinks this is a troll -- perhaps the set-up of a Yankee/New Yorker heading south, which usually does provoke some sweeping stereotypes of both New Yorkers and Southerners. Can we maybe avoid "warning" JonLongisland that he won't fit in, or that he should stay up north, or that he's going to hate NC or NC is going to hate him, etc., etc.?

The one thing I will warn Jon about, however, is that the whole concept/image of suburbs looks different down here, partly because the cities are smaller. Chapel Hill often strikes me as suburb-like without having the big city next door (Durham is just not that large and its downtown is struggling for identity).

Another thing I'll mention is that the lifestyle you (Jon) describe will call for a lot of puttering in cars, and if you are willing to spend time (and gas) driving around the Triangle (=Durham, Chapel Hill, Raleigh and lots inbetween such as Research Triangle Park and Cary), you can get pretty much everything you're looking for. There's even a Saks 5th on the NE apron of Raleigh and a Nordtroms in SW Durham, and all those little stores and cafes in clusters in Chapel Hill, 9th st. area of Durham, Glenwood/Cameron area of Raleigh.

I know Charlotte much less well but enough to know you can probably do well there, too.

Finally -- one thing to take into account: are you planning to be doing a lot of traveling back to NYC or anywhere else to see family or....? Although the whole structure of airtravel is changing, remember that the Raleigh-Durham airport (RDU) is a bigger hub than Charlotte, which right now is somewhat dependent on USAir.

Have to differ on Airport hubs-
The Charlotte Airport is way bigger than RDU and with USAIR/America West Merger--it is not going anywhere anytime soon....

I used to live in Charlotte and it has a much more big city town style than Raleigh....and I LOVED living there..

That said, if I had a chance to go back to NC, I would DEFINITELY go to Raleigh as it is way easier to get around, smaller and close to Chapel Hill..There are TONS of great things to do in Raleigh and the people are SUPER friendly....even Cary is nice--but I actually prefer Raleigh to Cary as the shopping is better, the restaurants are better, and the downtown is revitalized--also look at the 5 points area in Raleigh--inside the beltline and more of a neighborhood than a subdivision..
You can find EVERYTHING in Raleigh and yes, you can stay within your priceline..

Charlotte DEFINITELY bigger airport with more flights--not just USAir. Don't think I agree about Raleigh traffic/ease of getting around. Charlotte's is bad but Raleigh is awful. Huntersville, which I mentioned, I was just surprised to find is #22 on a "best place to live" list. The north side of Charlotte has just gotten another very upscale mall, along with all the Dean & Deluca types at Huntersville. And of course, a Starbucks gets dropped down overnight almost anywhere.
Charlotte, in addition to the usual complement of museumsand theaters, is getting ready to open a comprehensive children's library and theater. Absolutely beautiful facility.

There are older neighborhoods (1950s-1960s) in each of these towns where you might find a home on an acre. Since it's an older neighborhood it more likely to have trees.

If you can get over the acre+ need, maybe something like Meadowmont in Chapel Hill would work. Or buy acreage near there and spend time at the quaint stores.

By the way, we have too many Starbucks, plus a good number of non-Starbucks coffeeshops.

And as I ask everyone thinking about relocating to NC, do you have a job?

OK the two airports are closer in size than I thought, but in 2004, Charlotte had 6 million passengers, RDU had 8.6 million.

Just for the record.

Ummmmm. You might have to check that record. Your Raleigh Durham figure is correct according to Forbes Magazine. However the same year figure for Charlotte is
2004 Passenger Traffic:
25,534,374

Not real close, methinks.

And while Charlotte is a hub for UsAirways which really means you can go MANY places non-stop, I think RDU is not a hub for any airline, having lost AA a number of years ago. They are however serviced by Southwest so discount fares are available.

I agree with Diana that Jon is a troll who has leveraged on similar ideas that have appeared on this forum--either his ideas or those of others. This message is just a little bit too perfect to be real.

Have to be sure we're comparing the same things statistically -- I used figures on the airports' websites. Most of the tables I've since checked on DOT have the two a lot closer than a multiple of 4, but by most measures CLT is the larger of the two, I concede. On the other hand, there is a mammoth expansion on the books (which I hope isn't pie-in-the-sky based on cheap oil).

It's also true that RDU is not presently a hub for anyone, which may not be a bad thing, having seen what overdependence on a single airline does when that airline opts out for whatever reason. Among other things, it means other airlines aren't hesitant to move in. And there is a daily 777 nonstop to London, which is one way to avoid JFK, ATL, EWR as hubs to Europe. But it's true, the number of long-haul nonstops is limited (none to the West Coast as yet).

I would argue that one can also drive to CLT from the Triangle in 2 hrs. but for two things: 1. that would mean that one can drive the other way to RDU from Charlotte, too ;-) and 2. the airlines often charge more to take a nonstop from CLT than to start in RDU and connect through CLT, which is insane but true.

So even trolls can't entirely dictate the direction a controversy might take. Jon, old man, are you still thinking of relocating?

Ok everyone. I have to admit that I am a little confused how my question can create responses like calling me a "troll". Call me naive, but I am not sure why a New Yorker would be called a troll??? and yes, my question is real and sincere. Also, I do not care one ounce about airports or traffic or flights. I work 90% from home. All my my wife and I want is to find a nice place to live that on a cul-da-sac, acre plus with trees. We would love to be within 15 minutes of a trendy and cool place to to shop (NOT a Mall) but a quaint village type town. With a mall near by if we want. If that makes me a troll, so be it. Jon

Pittsboro.

Soccr, why don't you just LOOK here and get a life about it.
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2005...0818feat2.html

And you are the one that raised whether Jon would want to fly here and there.

Jon, there a lot of really beautiful places you could live in NC with your criteria. You might even want to go closer to the beach. We'll keep trying. Think about Charleston also.

Surrounding parts Chapel Hill is the 'rural buffer' area. It's to stop sprawl type growth and lot size is a minimum of 5 acres. A lot of horse farms and I'm not sure if you can make your price goal. Also you won't get water/sewer hookups (to keep the 'rural' in rual buffer) and a lot of land in Orange County doesn't perk.

Even though you'd have a CH address, it's in the Orange County school district. CH looks down their noses at Orange (it was the same when I was in CH schools) but your children will receive a good education there. If your children are future Rhodes scholars it wouldn't matter which school system they attend. If your kids would like vocational education courses, East Chapel Hill doesn't even offer them.

Also a lot of private and religious schools in the CH-Durham area.

Pittsboro is also a good suggestion. South of CH and north of Pittsboro are homes on larger lot sizes. Your kids would be in Chatham schools. I don't know much about them. And you might get a big box store there soon too.

Your desire for an acre+ near trendy stores makes your request difficult. Newer neighborhoods are promoting walkable communities, but that means small lot sizes. That's why I originally suggested older neighborhoods. In CH neighborhoods like Lake Forest (though I think you'd need more $$$ for most of the homes) or of that age will have larger, wooded lots and wouldn't be that far away from shopping or other services.

Jon,
I have never lived in these areas, but I have visited them at various times because I have family just across the border in Virginia. One place that might be worth checking out is Asheville NC. You mention a trendy village type town and that seems to fit the bill since it is an area that has attracted artists and young professionals lately. I cannot speak for the schools, but you can research that on the internet. The area is very wooded since it is in the mountains so finding a home site like that would work. If all of our immediate family wasn't in Texas I would consider a move to NC because it is so beautiful and not as hot!

Why are there so many posts about relocating to NC or GA? Why does there seem to be a mass exodus from the northeast?

Why the TROLL ALLERT?

Because yesterday he was moving to Connecticut! Check the posts.

Southern charm, Gretchen? I LOOKED at several sources in addition to Forbes thumbnail profiles, being aware that a lot depends on the definition of passenger traffic and who's reporting what particular bit of information. Does it include charters? General aviation? Pass-throughs? Having been to BOTH airports and noted differences in who uses each one, I questioned a statistic that suggests CLT is 4 times larger than RDU. And sure enough, if you go to LOOK at DOT's maze of tables on acrobat and do a little pulling and pushing, you find all kinds of different and conflicting measures regarding the two, including things like dollar revenue, emplaning vs. deplaning, take-offs, landings, etc. etc.

But you're right, getting all hot and bothered as to whose airport is bigger and whether other people know it and accept it does imply a major lack of having a life.

Especially since Jon turns out not to give a dang about airports (although if he moves here, he will).

Jon, friend: do you want to move down here or to Connecticut? Or are you writing a relo article?

Oh, well, if Jon's a troll, I'll put it bluntly: you can't live in the middle of the woods and be close to stores.