English88

So I decided to turn down an offer from CA and get a job in North Carolina instead.

The job is actually based in Durham and I will be moving fairly soon but I don't know the area well at all and have been having some arguments with the wife over where we're going to live so I took the logical decision to ask random strangers on the internet for advice

I want to live in a big house with a big yard in the suburbs with a reasonable commute to Durham and she wants to live in an apartment in downtown Raleigh (if that even exists). I know these are completely opposite sides of the spectrum so I'm trying to come up with a compromise but it's difficult when I don't know the area.

Ideally I'd like to find something like a 3 bedroom house with a yard that is a few minutes drive/long walk from some kind of "happening" area (bars, restaurants etc) as this would probably be good for both of us but I don't know where to start or if this is even feasible.

Any advice welcome... I'm newly married so still getting used to not getting my own way

Hawkini

Personally I wouldn't live in Raleigh or Durham period, downtown or otherwise - the city municipalities on the outside however... I currently live in Wake Forest, and in fact building a brand new house in Wake Forest (although outside the "city" so no city tax!) - further down the 98 towards Durham for an easier commute.

I wasn't impressed with the high house prices around Cary/Apex/Morrisville but then that's the easiest commute to jobs in South Raleigh, the airport, RTP etc and the bulk of the H-1B population live in Cary.

Schools are pretty much great for Elementary and Middle, some High Schools have lower ratings on Great Schools but keep clear of actual Raleigh High Schools and they are all fine.

Downtown Raleigh would not be a good commute to Durham at all. Having said that everywhere is connected by the belt line - so there are basically two highways making a ring around Raleigh so everywhere is pretty easy to get to no matter where you live.

rbackhouse

There are some nice condos in downtown Raleigh, probably looking at $300k for a 2 bedroom one that is half decent. That will give you good access to lots of bars and restaurants. Glenwood South and around Fayetteville street have lots happening. Can get noisy too late at night if your condo is close to these areas. The downside is that your commute to Durham will suck as you will have to deal with I-40 into the Park/Durham.

If you can deal with the suburbs then somewhere like Apex is a good compromise (where I live). It has easy access to Durham/RTP via I-540 (sadly that is a tollroad though). It takes me about 20 minutes to get there, even at rush hour. We have a good amount of bars and restaurants close by, although not as many options as downtown Raleigh. We do however go downtown quite a bit. About 20 mins from where we are.

There are other options too in North Raleigh or Wake Forest. You can use I-540 from up there too to get into RTP/Durham and a plus is that it's not a tollroad from up there.

You basically want to stay on the west side of Raleigh though as commuting into RTP/Durham from the east side would be a pain. That means suburbs towns such as Garner, Clayton, Knightdale would be best avoided. Cary, Apex, Morrisville, North Raleigh and Wake Forest are possibilities

HTH

CarefulTaxpayer

I moved to Cary at the end of 2011, after 20+ years in the San Francisco Bay Area. I agree with rbackhouse's comments. House pricing is, to me, ridiculously low in the entire Raleigh/Durham/Cary/Chapel Hill region, at least compared to the Bay Area. Property taxes vary by city, and are lower in the unincorporated areas, some of which are very close in to the cities. Zillow and other real estate sites tell you what the property taxes are for a given property.

There are still quite a few parts of Durham that you wouldn't want to live in, but you can figure that out pretty easily by looking at house prices. If it seems too cheap, there's a reason.

I bought a 10,000 square foot house in Cary for $150/square foot, on a couple of acres. For comparison, I sold a similar house in the Bay Area for $1000/foot. Quite a difference.

English88

I really want to live in Apex but she's adamant that there will be nothing there and it will be boring suburbia which she has some kind of irrational fear of.

rbackhouse, could you give me some info on where there is stuff to do in Apex (bars, breweries, restaurants etc) so I can put this argument to her and show her it's not some kind of ghost town?

Gotta love being married - despite facilitating all of this she's trying to force me to pay to live somewhere I don't want to in the name of equal partnership. Might just shoot my brains out.

rbackhouse

Sure,

In the downtown on Salem St along there is :

Peak City Grill & Bar (Good steaks)
Rock Harbor Grill (Not my favorite)
Salem Street Pub (Great burgers)
Anna's Pizzeria (Not too bad if you stick to pizza)
La Rancherita (Decent Mexican)

literally all within yards of each other. There is also a new barbecue place that opened up too recently but I've not been there.

Just down the road from me is an Irish pub called Doherty's Irish that does pretty good food too. They also do a half decent brunch on Sunday.

A couple of miles away is a brewery called Brueprint that you can drink at.

But to be honest its also so easy to go into Raleigh downtown too in the evenings. We were there in Cameron Village on Saturday eating and then sitting outside a pub afterwards.

CarefulTaxpayer

Apex is not a throbbing metropolis. It, Cary and the other towns around the Triangle are essentially subdivisions and strip malls. Said malls have everything you can imagine: an Algerian church next to a DMV next to a software startup next to a sad most-out-of-business gym.

Having said that, you're close to the the brewery/pub scene in Cary, a quick Uber/drive to downtown Cary, and the same to the American Tobacco district and downtown Durham. Your tradeoff is that you can't walk to those places. The advantage is that you live in a quiet neighborhood in a spacious house with an actual yard. Whether that balance sheet works for you and your spouse is an entirely separate matter :-(.

English88

Thanks for the additional info - there are a few nice houses within 20 minutes walk to Apex downtown and the fact that it's not a throbbing metropolis is a good thing for me but we'll see what the wife says.

rbackhouse

When I moved to Apex in 97 the population was 11,000, now its 42,000 and growing everyday.

Back then the only option for virtually everything was to go into Cary. My house was in a new subdivison on a country road. Now you have have pretty good variety on everything (groceries, pubs, restaurants, other shops etc)

Its has changed so much since then (mostly for the good). Traffic though is one thing that it getting more frustrating. Believe it or not there are times when it really is quite painful. But then no pain no gain.

MMcD

Perhaps your wife has already compromised ......

Does she, perhaps, love Ft. Lauderdale, where you now live?
Is it close to where her family and friends are?
Isn't it where (according to one of your recent posts) she's only just started working at a new job - one she'll have to give up?
Didn't you also say in one of your posts that your wife wanted to be on the coast - which of course - you are now? Raleigh is a several hour drive to closest beach. (And apparently she's already agreed to move there)

It seems that the move for your new job already involves substantial compromise on the part of your wife.

jackattack

Whoah. You live in a 10,000 sq ft house? Was that a typo? I've seen those online and on the TV but didn't know that real people actually lived in houses that big.

Do you have lots of kids or large extended family? Do you lose them in a house that large?

English88

You make good points! She has no family here though and it was her idea originally to leave Florida (mainly because she hates her new job) although she preferred California so NC is a slight compromise for her but she understands that financially NC is 100 times better for us.

Since my toys-out-of-the-pram post this morning we've found a property that she likes and I'd be happy with too I think. Even if it's just while we rent, before we decide to buy.

MMcD

Whew!

rbackhouse

Good idea on the renting. You can spend some time exploring the area better and figure out what work best for the both of you before committing to buying

LotusEater33

I think the old Apex center is quite cute.

Don't come over to Holly Springs please, it's getting too popular and prices are rising fast.mhouses are selling in 1 day.
We're renting but won't buy for a while, but we aim to move to HS and watching the prices go up is unnerving.