Title says it all, are there any areas in Eastern NC good for raising a family.  Mainly looking for safe with good schools and low crime.

We live in Maine and have been overwhelmed with Massachusetts jack asses moving in inflating prices and wrecking the schools. I flat out, despite making low 6 figures as a family, cant afford to live in southern Maine.  The average home price is now over 500k.  

Before anyone says we are full, we are family of 5, church attending Christian, and solid red voters.  

We are coming down to carolina beach 8/15 specifically to look around and feel out the area.  Id prefer to be semi close to the ocean (1 hour or less), houses for starter homes 3 bed 1 bath sub 300k, and not need flood insurance or have to worry about losing everything in a hurricane.

Ive been looking at evacuation maps looks like Wilmington area must be little higher up?  Im assuming that means safer if they dont make you evacuate?

Current nc folks i know it was purple state but seems you all are trending red or am i wrong.  Should i look at SC instead.  This is the last move for me and will be my last stand so i dont want to move to a lost cause, but if i can reinforce against the ny and nj scum I'm all in.  

Thanks for any suggestions you can provide.

I am a current resident of Carolina Beach. I’ve been here 10 years. My kids were in 3rd grade and Kindergarten when I moved here. I wish I would have moved here when they were even younger. Coming from the Raleigh area, the change of pace was exactly what I wanted for my kids. Good schools, good neighbors and it truly feels like a small town the 9 months out of the year outside tourist season. If you have any specific questions, please feel free to ask.

See my response in this thread
https://www.ar15.com/forums/Hometown/Moving-in-2-years-to-the-Carolinas-Tell-me-about-/34-673641/

Good thread to read. Thank you both for the replies.  

My main concern is flooding probably sounds silly to life long residents, just like I dont understand the south shutting down for snow. I used to work insurance claims and the aftermath of floods really stuck with me.  

I found some state maps with the flood zones we sre gonna tool around some when we are down next week and see if we like the area.  I could move to just about anywhere my wife is alot more picky.  

If nc doesnt work we will probably try sc next year to explore.

Sc come during the summer so you experience humidity.. you might be shell shocked.  



Always so suggest coming down several times to nc / sc different season so you totally understand if this some place you want to move to.  

I don't think you'll have to worry too much about snow down east in NC. Some on rare occasions? Yes. Accumulation? Rarely over an inch and it's usually gone by the next day.

Flooding? Yes, you betcha' it's wicked possible.

Updated flood maps might help but look carefully. Hurricanes are a thing, depending on how far inland it can vary from nothing to something bad. No telling until it happens.

Housing prices might surprise you as to how high they are but as long as you don't live 'on the beach' or in certain areas it's might still be reasonable.

I'd look for "CURRENT" property tax rates and Insurance rates before jumping off. They've only gone up and if you are anywhere near 'flooding' or 'hurricane' areas it's going to sting.

We won't discuss the heat and humidity.

Check out the schools in your areas of interest.  Folks here with school age kids will surely chime in.

Haven’t been in a few years but always liked Swansboro and Beaufort.  

New Bern is a nice town too if you don’t mind being a little inland on a river.

Flooding shuts things down as well. It depends a lot on the hurricane and sometimes it is not the amount of water the hurricane dumps in your area but to the areas west of you. If Falls Lake gets full they will start dumping water and flood areas east of Raleigh and all the way down the Neuse.

I forget how long ago, but in the past few years the Tar River overflowed and flooded areas of Greenville. Wilson has been flooded as well with no major rivers near it, just bad run off. Even some Fayetteville streets will flood with a heavy rain.

Richlands near Jacksonville also go flooded during a hurricane and it just has "creeks" around it.

It would be wise to run an internet search before buying a home and use the area you are thinking of buying and "flooding"

If your wife doesn't need to be at the coast, I would look more inland in my choices - however, I have relatives that living all over the eastern part of the state including Wilmington, Morehead City, and Brunswick County for 40 plus years and have never had an issue, but that doesn't mean come this October that they won't.

With kids look for the best schools districts because it is hit and miss.

We had a good trip stayed in Carolina beach explored that area and wilmington.  The USS North Carolina is a great self guided tour i really enjoyed that.  

I didnt really care for wilmington too busy and we got gas on the way to the battleship the station had a mobile camera on a trailer in the parking lot and methed out lunatics all around it.  

Carolina beach was nice to vacation not a chance I'd live there reminds me of some of our beach towns in maine all tourist focused.  The area inland up by wrights beach was more low key i liked it up there.

We took a ferry from fort fisher to southport and my wife instantly loved the town.  We had our best meal of the trip down at the marina at Edgewater 122 right on the water.  It had a nice small town feel kind of like where we live now.  The owner we got talking to and funny enough his brother lives in maine really close to us.  He claimed if you are smart where you buy outside a  major major hurricane its pretty safe.  Said he has been in same house for 25 years and never flooded or had major damages.

I dont think I'd want to be that close to the water with hurricanes but we cruised around the area a little bit and its definitely on the short list for possible relocation.  I wish we had done this beginning of the trip as it was our second to last day.  

Next trip we are going to stay down in that area maybe little further down the coast from Southport and really visit some of the smaller towns in the area.  I think we will probably do July to see if temps are any worse.  I was shocked how comfortable the temperature was being on the coast with the breeze i was comfortable.  I expected Florida weather just miserable but we ate outside every meal we could as long it was shady it was fine.  Maybe we just got a cool week i dont know.  

Thanks for the feedback its a beautiful state we didnt want to leave.