I’m surprised how many DM’s I’ve gotten about living in Raleigh! So figured it as time for a full blog post. I’m just going to dive with a little Q&A as I feel like that is the best way to answer all the questions 🙂 We also have a podcast up on this topic where we also share our thoughts on other major cities we’ve visited and been too–listen here!

Do you like living in Raleigh? Yes! We love it. Stephen and I both grew up in the midwest (KS, OH, IL, etc). and have traveled a ton. I say all that because we are definitely familiar with a lot of other parts of the country. Every time we visit somewhere we think–do we like this more than Raleigh/would we ever move here? Not that we’re trying to leave Raleigh but it’s just kind of fun to talk about and compare new cities you’re visiting to where you currently live. I can honestly tell you that we have not been to one place that we prefer over Raleigh. When we consider cost of living, weather year round, traffic, what there is to do, etc. Raleigh always wins. But honestly, even despite all that, the other day we were saying if we had all the money in the world and cost wasn’t a thing–where would we live? And we both said we’d like to stay in Raleigh. So not saying that we aren’t even open to moving somewhere else, but you get the point that we are very happy we live here!

What areas are good to live in? This is a tough one to answer because it depends on so many things. What is your budget? Do you want to be in certain school districts? Do you want to be closer to North Raleigh or downtown? Do you want to be in the suburbs, or do you want more land? For us, we live in east Raleigh (about 10 minutes from the area called North Hills) and this is perfect for us right now. We live in a neighborhood that is kind of tucked away from the main roads, but only takes us 10-15 minutes to get to the main areas of Raleigh. I always recommend looking on the website Trulia as that tells you a lot about an area (price, crime, schools, what restaurants and bars are close by, etc). And then if you’re really serious, I would look into getting a realtor. We used Chip Barker and had such an awesome experience with him. We will definitely use him again when we eventually move!

What is there to do? The thing I love about Raleigh is that it’s “up and coming” enough that they are constantly building new things, but it’s not so big yet where the traffic is insane. There are so many fitness studios (pilates, barre, tramp studio, spin…the list got on), grocery stores (Trader Joes, Wegmans, Harris teeter, Publix, Costco, etc) and restaurants. Every year when bon appetite features their restaurants, Raleigh (and Durham) always make the list. There’s also a great downtown, several really good shopping areas, public parks, breweries, etc.

What is the weather like year round? We definitely have the seasons here but overall they are pretty mild–meaning it doesn’t get absolutely freezing in the winter. Summers are definitely hot like 90 degrees+ but we have a nice actual spring and fall. From November-February is fairly cold but we only get snow probably 1-2x a season (if even). In the winter we definitely have some random 60 degree days, but overall is stays cool until March. We don’t really have any “natural disasters” so to speak. Sometimes if there is a hurricane off the coast we will get at ton rain, but we’ve only lost power once for a few hours due to a hurricane a couple years ago.

In general the Raleigh area is growing really quickly. It’s consistently been voted one the top areas for young professionals to live in, it has the highest median income in the entire state, and it’s been voted the 22nd safest city in the entire US. Right now it is definitely a sellers market. Houses go on the market and are literally sold in less than 12-24 hours with multiple bids. If you’re considering moving to this area though, I really can’t recommend it enough. It’s a great city now, and if you buy now, your property value is moving quickly in the right direction 🙂