Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Chapel Hill is one of those towns that has an abundance of charm and personality. Although it is home to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill is much more than just a college town. It is a rare blend of southern charm and hospitality, new trends, tradition, techno-savvy, good food, healthy living and great weather. As a popular North Carolina college town and retirement destination all rolled into one, Chapel Hill combines the ‘young and the restless’ with a seasoned, wise, but still very active baby boomer population. It has great restaurants along Franklin Street, intelligent residents that are very focused on healthy living, and great parks. The University brings energy, intellectual curiosity, culture and a great long-standing college basketball rivalry (with neighboring Duke University) to Chapel Hill. Combine this with the scientists, researchers, patent holders, Nobel Prize winners and other innovators that arrive via their jobs at nearby Research Triangle Park, and you’ve got a unique populace. With nearby lakes, the beach 2 hours to the east and the Blue Ridge Mountains an easy drive to the west, it’s easy to see why Chapel Hill is called ‘the Southern part of heaven’!

North Carolina Relocation

North Carolina is the place that most often comes to the minds of folks from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut when they request information on places to retire, relocate or purchase a second home. According to proprietary data accumulated by PrivateCommunities.com, residents of the Tri-State area requested information on planned/gated amenity communities from North Carolina an average of 33% of the time, followed by Florida, then South Carolina. Altogether, these three Southeastern states were a whopping 70% of the requests coming from the chillier, more expensive states that surround NY city.

It’s not surprising to see both North and South Carolina on everyone’s mind as a destination. And although Florida has long been a popular destination for NY Metro area residents, the Carolinas together are requested almost twice as often as Florida. Why?

• Geography that has long stretches of oceanfront, one of America’s most beautiful mountain ranges, and everything in-between.
• Mild, four-season weather that allows the beauty of the above-mentioned topography to be enjoyed virtually year-round.
• Large cities loaded with services, health care and virtually everything one might need, and…
• Small towns – loaded with charm, friendly people and a sense of ‘home’ that is immediate, genuine and so hard to find these days
• The Carolinas are attractive to both the young and the not-so-young – allowing families the rare opportunity to find a place where they can happily work, play and be together.
• Lower-than-average expense levels in many of the categories that consume large chunks of our monthly budgets, especially property taxes and the cost of purchasing a home.

But most of all is that the Carolinas are a place that ‘just feel like home’. The Carolinas are a place of tradition and history, with folks coming from different states and merging their own traditions (it’s as easy in many spots to find a good, New York-style bagel as it is a good dish of shrimp and grits). There is a sense from many people that The Carolinas offer so many opportunities to really step back, exhale a bit and enjoy life with those they love.

To learn more about what North Carolina has to offer, please visit our website at www.ThinkLouiseBeck.com.