apamburn
09-21-2020, 08:33 AM
As I've said in previous threads, we decided to leave NC and as of Friday are officially gone.
The reasons for leaving NC are numerous and I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, for a variety of current and future political, governmental, societal, cultural, economic, educational, and environmental reasons, the city of Rocky Mount specifically, and the state of NC generally, was not where we wanted to raise our kids.
Due to our race, politics, and socio-economic situation, we were in the top and the minority of the city, and I genuinely believe many on the city council viewed me as the enemy, and would endorse policies to take more of my money and outlaw or restrict my way of life and gun ownership.
Most of the people I met were in fact incredibly polite and kind; but that the elected representatives all endorsed those policies made clear that my experience was anecdotal; the attitude of the majority is that they want to leech off of people like me.
No thanks.
The path to leaving has been a bit rocky. You may remember that almost exactly 1 year ago we moved here from Utah. It goes without saying that the culture of eastern NC is vastly different from that of Utah, and the other issues that ultimately led us to leave are things that, frankly, we could have probably figured out before moving to NC in the first place. Water under the bridge and lessons learned now.
We started off by just getting our house sold while we looked for a place to move. We eventually went under contract with closing set for Sept 10; but the sale fell through about 5 days before closing. Ultimately we ended up renting the house out.
We've always wanted to own investment properties, but didn't mean to rent our previous home out. We will see how it goes - first time landlord with distant rental property. Having a rental in the top economic tier for the area has it's benefits so far: we demanded a premium for the rent and it was met. The quality of interested tenant was very high, and it was rented in about a week's time of listing for rent. Not sure if we will keep or sell and buy more rentals close by.
Fortunately we had enough cash on hand to purchase our new home without needing the proceeds from selling our previous home.
So in August, with this house sold, we began looking in earnest for a new home. We started by creating a blacklist of states we wouldn't move to and narrowed down to the following:
Dallas TX - beautiful homes, good employment opportunity, no income tax, but crazy property taxes, good schools
Phoenix AZ - acceptable homes, good employment opportunity, and western culture / lifestyle we already know we like, but but bang-for-buck suffers, and small properties are small, good schools
?? TN - home prices vary, employment opportunity varies, no income tax, good property taxes, good schools depending on area
Atlanta GA - good home prices, good employment opportunity, good schools depend on area
We rejected TX because of the property taxes. Just too high.
We rejected Atlanta GA after taking a drive there to look. We didn't hate the area, but the possibility of race-related stupidity is as high or higher than in NC.
We looked hard in Phoenix, but ultimately ended up passing. AZ had a few logistical problems. The market is just so hot we couldn't find a place before someone else scooped it up, and we would have ended up paying over asking to have a snowball's chance in hell of getting an accepted offer. When we moved here from UT we tried the "move to temp housing then look and buy" approach and frankly didn't want to do that again.
We ultimately found a home in western TN that we immediately knew was perfect. It's big (5400+ sqft), custom-made, and has about 2 acres; outdoor recreation opportunities in our new hometown abound; and the state has low property taxes AND no income tax. Our new hometown is about halfway between Memphis and Nashville.
I drove a 26 ft long truck + trailer myself - not too bad on the highway but I didn't like getting off for any reason but fuel. I had a pretty good copilot.
60282
We got in town yesterday, walked the house, and we close tomorrow.
60281
So if there's anyone here in TN, let me know and let's meet up. Drinks on me.
The reasons for leaving NC are numerous and I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, for a variety of current and future political, governmental, societal, cultural, economic, educational, and environmental reasons, the city of Rocky Mount specifically, and the state of NC generally, was not where we wanted to raise our kids.
Due to our race, politics, and socio-economic situation, we were in the top and the minority of the city, and I genuinely believe many on the city council viewed me as the enemy, and would endorse policies to take more of my money and outlaw or restrict my way of life and gun ownership.
Most of the people I met were in fact incredibly polite and kind; but that the elected representatives all endorsed those policies made clear that my experience was anecdotal; the attitude of the majority is that they want to leech off of people like me.
No thanks.
The path to leaving has been a bit rocky. You may remember that almost exactly 1 year ago we moved here from Utah. It goes without saying that the culture of eastern NC is vastly different from that of Utah, and the other issues that ultimately led us to leave are things that, frankly, we could have probably figured out before moving to NC in the first place. Water under the bridge and lessons learned now.
We started off by just getting our house sold while we looked for a place to move. We eventually went under contract with closing set for Sept 10; but the sale fell through about 5 days before closing. Ultimately we ended up renting the house out.
We've always wanted to own investment properties, but didn't mean to rent our previous home out. We will see how it goes - first time landlord with distant rental property. Having a rental in the top economic tier for the area has it's benefits so far: we demanded a premium for the rent and it was met. The quality of interested tenant was very high, and it was rented in about a week's time of listing for rent. Not sure if we will keep or sell and buy more rentals close by.
Fortunately we had enough cash on hand to purchase our new home without needing the proceeds from selling our previous home.
So in August, with this house sold, we began looking in earnest for a new home. We started by creating a blacklist of states we wouldn't move to and narrowed down to the following:
Dallas TX - beautiful homes, good employment opportunity, no income tax, but crazy property taxes, good schools
Phoenix AZ - acceptable homes, good employment opportunity, and western culture / lifestyle we already know we like, but but bang-for-buck suffers, and small properties are small, good schools
?? TN - home prices vary, employment opportunity varies, no income tax, good property taxes, good schools depending on area
Atlanta GA - good home prices, good employment opportunity, good schools depend on area
We rejected TX because of the property taxes. Just too high.
We rejected Atlanta GA after taking a drive there to look. We didn't hate the area, but the possibility of race-related stupidity is as high or higher than in NC.
We looked hard in Phoenix, but ultimately ended up passing. AZ had a few logistical problems. The market is just so hot we couldn't find a place before someone else scooped it up, and we would have ended up paying over asking to have a snowball's chance in hell of getting an accepted offer. When we moved here from UT we tried the "move to temp housing then look and buy" approach and frankly didn't want to do that again.
We ultimately found a home in western TN that we immediately knew was perfect. It's big (5400+ sqft), custom-made, and has about 2 acres; outdoor recreation opportunities in our new hometown abound; and the state has low property taxes AND no income tax. Our new hometown is about halfway between Memphis and Nashville.
I drove a 26 ft long truck + trailer myself - not too bad on the highway but I didn't like getting off for any reason but fuel. I had a pretty good copilot.
60282
We got in town yesterday, walked the house, and we close tomorrow.
60281
So if there's anyone here in TN, let me know and let's meet up. Drinks on me.