Still the downturn in prices and building of inventories is starting to attract second home buyers from Florida looking for cool temperatures in our mountains. Also the dramatic decline in the dollar combined with weakness in American real estate markets are beginning to interest some bargain hunting European investors.

Ron Holland, Broker/Realtor with Wolf’s Crossing Realty. Ron markets resale mountain and ski resort properties in Wolf Laurel and The Preserve at Wolf Laurel. The credit crisis and housing meltdown offers serious risks but also some opportunities to Americans. He has a free report on the crisis titled “From Real Estate Bubble To Buyers Market”. See http://www.ronaldholland.com for more details.

Uh…because you’re 50 and currently employed in NJ and you have to work and your likelihood of getting a job elsewhere is virtually nil?

I’m no NC basher, but there’s NC and then there’s NC. I could very happily live in the Durham/Chapel Hill/Carrboro/Pittsboro area. Those are, however, the more expensive parts of NC (though still less for housing than here). If you like jam bands and bluegrass (which I do), the nightlife in Chapel Hill and environs is just fine.

Here’s where some NJ folks have problems in NC though, and I know this from direct testimony from someone who moved there:

Here in NJ, let’s face it — we live in a segregated society. Where there are black people in a town, there’s a “black section.” Houses may be just as expensive as elsewhere, but there’s a “black section.”

At least in the Triangle area of NC, you will run into black Americans far more in day-to-day life than you do in NJ. In many ways northerners are far more bigoted than southerners because of this de facto segregation. It’s one of the ironies of the new south, that at least in the more cosmopolitan areas of the south, there is more intermingling than here in the north.

This person who moved there has had a very hard time adjusting to this. I’m not condoning this attitude one bit, but I think it’s something that people moving to NC ought to think about. If you’re going to be a racist bigot because up here your town is lily-white, then don’t move there.

True, but, one only needs to pay private school tuition for a limited number of years. The taxes are forever.

Look NC is not a utopia and I can understand if people wouldn’t want to live here, however we do and love it compared to NJ. Life is so much easier. Especially when you can golf year round.

And many sellers are in complete denial, somebody forgot to tell them that 05 is over.

Their over priced listings will continue to rot on the market.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23359218/

“The least productive citizens gain more and more power as the most productive are chased out.”

True in Denmark, true in Detroit, true in NJ.

The meek don’t inherit the earth…the indolent do.

If you want beautiful, clean, empty, drive a 4WD, like to fish, are a good swimmer, and can carry in your stuff, it’s ten bucks a car load. But you have to poop in a Job Johnny.
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/island.html

Real downside there is riptides. My husband, daughter (then 3) and I got taken out once at 8 am, and I’m pretty good. The only thing that saved my daughter was that she knew to stretch out flat and do donuts until we got to her.

Otherwise, it’s still ten bucks a carload at the guarded beaches, but there are way more people. There are clean bathrooms, showers, hot dogs/pizza and lifeguards.

Just like a South Park episode, but instead of blaming Canada blame North Carolina.

Out: I hate to break the news to you, but NJ/Trenton’s problem is not incompetence. It’s pretty simple, people get into power and funnel as much money into their own pockets either directly or indirectly.

The reason it hasn’t been fixed is because people actually make enough money that they don’t have the time to waste or inclination to fix it.

Yes they complain. Yes they are annoyed. However, when push comes to shove, they have the money, they pay the money, and they have enough left over to spend money on other stuff.

Similar to HG Wells Time Machine. The Morlocks run the state and the Sheeple are blissfully ignorant, while the Morlocks eat them periodically. But because the Sheeple have plenty of fruit, between feeding times, they don’t complain. One wonders are the fat sheeple who get eaten, better off then the sheeple who left? Or will they wake up one day and realize what they are?

OMG just shoot me….