Making the decision to move... esp. to NC

So, moving to VA wasn't nearly as confusing for us since I spent every summer in the area growing up... but NC is a whole other story.

I think there's about a 75% chance we'll move this summer, or the year after. For those to moved to an area that you were not familiar with... what were the steps that you took? How did you learn about the different parts of a city/town?

We're leaning toward the Raleigh/Durham area (likely Cary) but we're not really set.

We'd like to take a long weekend trip sometime in the next few months, and were wondering what was the most important stuff to focus on. Thanks!

Re: Making the decision to move... esp. to NC

We did research on the job market, and found that there were quite a number of jobs in the IT field (for DH) in the RTP area. I also researched the number of Intellectual Property law firms (for me) which were in Raleigh......We then researched the school districts and surrounding areas of the Raleigh area (we wanted a more rural area within about a half-hour drive of the city). We decided on either Garner, Fuquay-Varina, Clayton or Holly Springs.

We contacted a real estate agent in the Raleigh area and told him our wants. We didn't want to see a home with less than 2 acres of property and that narrowed the areas down to Garner and Clayton. We found our perfect home in Clayton and love it! We drove around the town, getting a feel for it, again researched the school district (which is in Johnston county, so there isn't the problem of overcrowding and year-round schools that are in Wake county -- where Raleigh, Holly Springs, Cary, etc. are)

Re: Making the decision to move... esp. to NC

Thanks so much!!! We're both in education (teacher, and school psychologist) so we know the job thing should be a problem down there.

I didn't know about the overcrowding in Wake though - I'll look into those other counties!

Thanks again!

Re: Making the decision to move... esp. to NC

leighdvm gave good tips. We decided on the winston-salem, high point, greensboro area. For my DH there a ton of hispitals in that area, and we found you get more for your money in house, property, and taxes. I am in teaching, already certified for NC, however no luck for this year (I think my residency was a issue to many schools).
We decided on that area, because we did not want to make the move (for a better lifestyle), just to be faced with a little LI all over again.

We go down this week to sign on our house and start construction and my DH is interviewing too!

Re: Making the decision to move... esp. to NC

I grew up spending summers down on Cape Cod because that's where my dad was from originally. That's really the only part of MA that I knew.

When we were talking about moving, we decided to look in MA because I knew my parents wanted to retire soon and move back down to The Cape. So we looked at the South Shore of MA. We knew we'd have to be in proximity of Boston for working purposes so we started looking from there out. We found a new condo complex about 30 miles south of Boston. So every weekend when we had to travel up here for closing, inspection, etc- we'd spend the entire weekend just getting to know the area. We'd just take one road and drive 30 miles in one direction, and then turn around and go the opposite way. The first week we were here, neither one of us had started our jobs yet so we just took that week to get to know Boston and the surrounding areas. We loved discovering all the little stores and restaurants that were now our neighborhood. It's been almost 3 months and we absolutely love it here..