wojo8625 wrote: ↑Sat Nov 27, 2021 7:42 am
Slacker wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 8:47 pm
I'm going to also suggest Durham - Raleigh area.
More tech job openings than Charlotte from what I understand. Warm weather. Similar housing prices to Phoenix. New Apple campus is under construction and we also have IBM, redhat, SAS, Epic games, CREE, Cisco, many biotechs, and many of the big tech companies have workgroups here (I think Google is expanding their Durham location by 400 employees).
If you can stand humidity, I find the summers in Raleigh to be far more preferable to the summers in Phoenix.
How about the winters?
Slacker wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 8:47 pmI'll take 90s and humidity over 120s any day. I've lived in Denver, Phoenix, Seattle, outside Atlanta, Raleigh, and DC.
Taxes - 4.99% this coming year with a $12,750 standard deduction ($25,500 for a married couple).
One area where we are lacking - mass transit. The bus system is a bit disjointed and dysfunctional. Traffic is lighter than Phoenix in the winter, DC, Seattle, and Denver. Also the mosquitoes will eat you alive - there are these particularly nasty ones that have white stripes on their body and they actually sting when they get you.
That's the disadvantage of warm weather places.....nasty bugs. Maybe not so bad in a city though?
Slacker wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 8:47 pmBeaches 2.5hrs away and mountains about 3hrs away. The spring flowers and fall colors are amazing in this area (but if you have bad allergies you may not enjoy it much).
I do tend to have seasonal allergies.
Slacker wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 8:47 pmWhere I'm at we have tons of hiking / biking trails where you are in the middle of the city and step on a trail and feel like you've been transported to the forest and the city just disappears other than the faint sounds of traffic in the distance. There are further plans for a biking / hiking trail that will connect Raleigh to Chapel Hill through Durham along I-40 (I can't say I have knowledge of whether or not it has been funded yet). Most of the bigger cities/suburbs have multiple large parks where you can encounter deer, foxes and raccoons (and unfortunately copper head snakes).
Copper head snakes? Interesting. Is that a common thing or rare? I will often say I want to live in a warm weather snake but I do admit that I wouldn't want to deal with poisonous spiders in the house or poisonous snakes in the yard.
Slacker wrote: ↑Fri Nov 26, 2021 8:47 pmThe variety of birds that will visit your yard is also amazing. The area is growing still with many manufacturing jobs coming in (Fujifilm building a very large biotech manufacturing facility in Holly Springs as one example).
...as far as Mayberry goes, I'm always taken by surprise when I actually do run into someone with a southern accent since it is so uncommon in this area.
If marijuana is a consideration - it is not legal for recreational purposes in NC.
Thanks for all the info!
Winters - I've seen snow twice in 3 years here. One time it stuck around for almost a whole day. Some days I have to get shorts and a t shirt, but typically we are in the 50s and 60s during the day and mid 30s low 40s for the overnight lows.
Bugs - get your house sprayed every 60 days. If you have a very forested backyard like me, you may want liberal applications of "off" to last in the backyard during summer. However, it is rarely a problem walking around the neighborhoods and the trails aren't too bad either.
Side note: Phoenix strangely has almost as bad a mosquito problem as NC.
Allergies - I had more issues in Seattle than here but a few days in spring the skies will be yellow with oak tree and dogwood pollen. I take an antihistamine maybe on 2 or 3 days of the year.
Copperheads - they won't kill you. A neighbor had one in their yard and the dachshund survived a bite on the nose (with proper medical care of course). I've seen many out hiking, but never seen them go after a person. I think people only get bit when they step on one (they blend in a little) or intentionally harass them.
We get many orb weavers, but only the tiny jumping spiders have made it into our house. The orb weavers create amazing webs and have the most vibrantly colored bodies - a joy to observe IMO.