vexco wrote:dmutombo321 wrote:vexco wrote:I don't post often anymore but a question for the guys who actually live in Charlotte:
My girlfriend and I are moving to Charlotte in September. Her job is based in Waxhaw so we're looking to stay on the south side of Charlotte if possible. Any recommendations for neighborhoods? Not buying right off, but renting. Open to places not in south Charlotte. Houses or townhomes only, no apartments. Just looking for some ideas I can look into. Thanks!
I'm situated in the Matthews/Stallings area right around 485. I believe Fats is too.
As far as housing/townhome options for renting south of Charlotte - what's your price point?
Most of the area in close proximity to the 485 loop on the south side is pretty affluent, meaning lots of nice places but also relatively pricey.
Are you guys amenable to satellite towns south of Charlotte city limits but north of Waxhaw like Weddington? Whereabouts will you be commuting?
Her job is in Waxhaw, I run an ebay store so I work from home. Probably up to $1250 per month? Roughly, at least. Open to different areas. Was looking heavily at the Pineville area.
Edit: I know my way around Charlotte decently. I live in Spartanburg, SC currently. I'm in Charlotte every Monday...it's just hard to know the city that well if you're only there once a week.
For the south side of Charlotte your best bets for that price range would probably be Matthews/Stallings/Indian Trail area or the Pineville/Ballantyne/Indian Trail area. Everything in between those two area on the south side gets a pricey.
There are a ton of new apartments going up in Ballantyne, which might help keep prices of some of the townhomes in the area down. There are a lot of 2 bedroom townhouses in the Ballantyne area that are a little older (90s early 00s) that can be rented for around 1200-1300 a month. The good thing about the Ballantyne area is there are a lot of townhouses built in between the bigger houses. I'm not so sure about there being that many townhouses in other parts of south Charlotte.
You can probably forget about Weddington/Marvin area. Pretty much everything around Weddington/Marvin area is homes starting at 600K. I assume people from Weddington lock their car doors when they drive into Ballantyne.
My mom lives in Stallings and its a nice little community. Apparently they have a huge overflow of tax money right now (they raised taxes higher than they needed) and they'll be spending a lot of it on cool stuff for the town. It doesnt have near the amount of traffic that you'd find in Pineville, Matthews or Ballantyne and since you have no need to commute into Charlotte since you work at home and your wife works in Waxhaw you'll enjoy the quieter area. If you get into Union County, just over the line you'll get savings on taxes.
If you have kids? Ballantyne area probably has better schools, but I think pretty much everything in south Charlotte would be OK compared to other areas of Charlotte.
One other suggestion would be Indian Land which is in SC, just over the border, closer to Waxhaw than Ballantyne and probably cheaper, but still nice. They keep building down 521 into SC, there is no shortage of new housing and new townhomes in that direction.
The downside to Pineville is the traffic. Everything in Pineville is bogged down by the traffic on Hwy 51/485/South Blvd. Also, traffic heavy around Carolina Place mall.
Anything in Matthews near Independence/Hwy 74 is also pretty bad with traffic.
Traffic in Ballantyne around Johnston/521/485 is a nightmare at peak hours, but the secondary roads are a breeze.
But, as long as you aren't trying to go anywhere at 8AM or 5PM all of those places are manageable.
