Miami to North Carolina (Charlotte, Raleigh: house, job market, buy)
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Hello folks I'm new to this forum and could not find a topic on moving from Miami to North Carolina so please forgive me if I ask this advice from you.
We plan to move somewhere from Miami in about 5 years and are presently search for the best location for us. I have a few requirements that I would like to run by you. Please be candid I will not be insulted.
1) Tolerance towards non-christians? (Jewish and Buddhist)
2) Rush hour traffic less than 1 hour commute.
3) Within 3 hours from the mountains or lakes.
4) Ability to purchase a 3 bedroom house for less than $300,000.
5) Utility bills lower than $200 a month.
6) Job market for people over 40 years of age.
7) Tolerence for foreign born nationals (a Cuban and an Israeli)
Hello folks I'm new to this forum and could not find a topic on moving from Miami to North Carolina so please forgive me if I ask this advice from you.
We plan to move somewhere from Miami in about 5 years and are presently search for the best location for us. I have a few requirements that I would like to run by you. Please be candid I will not be insulted.
1) Tolerance towards non-christians? (Jewish and Buddhist)
2) Rush hour traffic less than 1 hour commute.
3) Within 3 hours from the mountains or lakes.
4) Ability to purchase a 3 bedroom house for less than $300,000.
5) Utility bills lower than $200 a month.
6) Job market for people over 40 years of age.
7) Tolerence for foreign born nationals (a Cuban and an Israeli)
Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
thanks,
Joe
I live in both Miami Beach and Raleigh and can tell you that you can fulfill every one of your requirements in the greater Raleigh/Durham (Triangle) area. Given your 5 year window, I am supposing you are going to me methodical about this journey and make purposeful decisions. Regarding employment, you don't give us any indication about those expectations other than needing a job. In which fields will you two be looking? For some, the job market is tough because they don't have the skill sets required. For others, finding a job wasn't the hardest part of their move.
I am curious about your requirement for utility bills under $200. I suppose that would depend on what size, age and type of housing you purchase. It would also depend on how hot you like your house in the Winter and how cold you like your house in the Summer.
5 years is a long way out to be researching, though I admire your diligence. Unfortunately, nobody has a crystal ball to know what things will be like in 5 years (imagine asking that question 5 years ago) so asking about things like the job market is like shaking a Magic 8 Ball. The Raleigh metro area experienced the #1 highest rate of growth in the US between 2000-2010 (tied with Las Vegas) which means that there is a LARGE labor supply for the demand, i.e. lots of people looking for each and every job that is available. YMMV depending on job fields, of course.
No problems with tolerance for religions or races. This isn't rural Mississippi
It's impossible to talk about commute unless you know both where you will be living and where you will be working. Obviously, you can live right next door to work and have no commute, or you can live 40 miles from work and have a nasty one. As the Magic 8 Ball says, "Ask Again Later".
Raleigh is about 4+ hours from the mountains, but there are some lakes here. You might look into the Greensboro/Winston-Salem or Charlotte areas for places closer to the NC mountains.
As of right now (not 5 years from now), $300K can buy a house in this area as you describe, in many though not all areas.
Since you are still "scouting", just hop a plane and spend a few days looking around. Nobody should move anywhere without really looking around the area first.
I live in both Miami Beach and Raleigh and can tell you that you can fulfill every one of your requirements in the greater Raleigh/Durham (Triangle) area. Given your 5 year window, I am supposing you are going to me methodical about this journey and make purposeful decisions. Regarding employment, you don't give us any indication about those expectations other than needing a job. In which fields will you two be looking? For some, the job market is tough because they don't have the skill sets required. For others, finding a job wasn't the hardest part of their move.
I am curious about your requirement for utility bills under $200. I suppose that would depend on what size, age and type of housing you purchase. It would also depend on how hot you like your house in the Winter and how cold you like your house in the Summer.
My wife and I both work for the Government in Florida. I will be hopefully retiring in 4.5 years with a pension which we could live off of until we find work. As for warmth I was just up in Tennessee December and was surprised how well a wood burning stove kept the cabin warm. My concern was extreme temperatures. In Miami the home are built to keep cool not warm. CBS does not block out the cold and having marble floors makes it even colder.
Cuban and Israeli? Now that's a fiery combination.
I don't see any reason why you couldn't consider Asheville or Charlotte. I'd recommend you come up and spend some time here. Travel around. Talk to people. See what areas appeal to you. Since you will have retired jobs won't be as important, so you can pretty much settle wherever you want. It's a large state; I'm sure you can find somewhere that you'll like.
I am curious about your requirement for utility bills under $200.
It may be hard to stay under $200 in the summer A/C season. Also watch out for the water bills, as they can be high in some communities if you use a lawn sprinkler.
There are Buddhist communities in North Carolina. However I can only speak for the Southeast Asian Theravada Buddhism, since NC does have a lot of Southeast Asians. I know Charlotte and Raleigh have a few Buddhist temples, however these temples are very much segregated by nationality. The Cambodian, Laotian, and Thai have their own individual one, mainly b/c of nationality and language differences. I'm unsure of the Mahayana sect here. IMO, I find that Buddhism is accepted here or people just don't know anything about the Buddhist communities and leave it alone. So if you want to find a temple, the NC big cities are a must and also areas with a few Asian pockets.
The Jewish community here (Charlotte) has long been established, and I don't see any tensions.
I have Cuban friends, and I don't know their exact population figure are, but the ones I know are long time residents or were born here. Out of all the Hispanics here, I personally find Cubans are more integrated in the American culture.
As for mountains and lakes, not to be bias, but from Charlotte the mountains are from an hour to two hours away and there are plenty of lakes within the county Charlotte is seated in, Lake Wylie, Mountain Island Lake, and Lake Norman. Then there are lakes within the mountain areas that are scenic and pristine like Lake James and Lake Lure, both are less than two hours from Charlotte.
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