Help from locals in NC
 

I am still working out a relocation deal with my company to move me from NJ to NC. I am hopeful that it will happen and it is really down to the specific job before I decide. However, while negotiating I took my wife down and we looked at homes in several locations. The first was Myers Park in a development Stonecroft, not sure if anyone is familiar with it. One of the others was in Waxhaw--Providence Downs (not Providence Downs South). It seems that real estate in Charlotte is really slow right now so I think that the negotiating will work in my favor. Where I live now was rated 22nd on the Fortune 100 best places to live, last year it was 13th. I am sure it will hit 3 or 4 when I leave just based on that improvement. ;0 Thus, the prices here are still insane. Who reads that shit anyway? I guess the realtors do so they can continually quote while you are getting ripped off for a small house with high taxes.

Anyone have opinions on either of these places? I would be working in downtown Charlotte. I have 3 kids who are all excellent students. I have been told Myers Park is a magnet school district, and Union County (Waxhaw) is also well known for the school districts. I also don't mind the additional commute from Waxhaw. I was told it was about 25 minutes to downtown. I commute 1:20 now from NJ to NY.

Thanks.

Concord and Kannapolis are nice towns. Shelby is a nice town the other direction. All three are about a 30 minute commute to Charlotte. They are all relatively small towns on the outskirts of the "big city"

My main office is located in Shelby, I lived in Charlotte/Concord before moving out into the country of Rutherford Co. The areas you mentioned are both nice, Myers Park is very close to Downtown and is pretty much central to the entire city. Waxhaw is nice and pretty quiet, but the ride into work will suck, but sounds like you are used to that in NJ. You will find the better deals the further away from downtown you go and out of the city limits.

Help me understand what you mean by the ride in will suck? Everything is relative but I don't want to sit in bumper to bumper traffic for hours on end. Is the commute a lot more than 25-30 minutes?

You may want to stop by www.charlottesportbikes.com They could definitely give you some good advice. I know a realitor in the area too if you are interested.

I work in uptown Charlotte as well but live north of the city in the Lake Norman area in Mooresville. I don't have kids so I'm not much of a help with the schools. The commute you speak of from Waxhaw is a pain in the azz BUT as you mentioned it's all relative and you're already used to worse. My commute from Mooresville is 30 -45 minutes when school is out and closer to one hour when school is in.

The areas you talk about are both very nice areas though so good luck with your move.

I live in Kannapolis. The housing in the area is very reasonable. I commute to SC every day and that takes an hour. You should be able to get to downtown Charlotte in 30 minutes depending on traffic. You can get a lot more house and land in my area versus Charlotte. The schools are good in my area too.

I have a lot of friends in Lake Norman and it is very nice.

I have to check out Kannapolis (sp?) to see what it's like there. I will be going down again next week so will look then. I am open to a lot of stuff but the 10 mile commute sounds cool. It is expensive in Myers Park. Thanks for all the advice and more importantly I hope to meet up with each of you for regular riding!

Many years ago like 1995, I live in South Charlotte off of Providence Rd, I worked downtown off of 7th street, distance wise it was about 7-10 miles but if you hit it at the wrong time of day or did not know all the back way contingency routes it could take 30 minutes to get their.

I moved out to Concord, NC near the Speedway off of Pitt School Rd and my commute to work was an avg of 45 minutes, some days more if their was an accident or something.

Charlotte has been working to improve it's roads and the 485 beltline has helped tremendously so I would imagine while still bad traffic flows much better now. Anytime I spend their now is usually not during peak traffic flow, rush hour or I'm usually headed against the grain.