I haVe friends who moved here with a family from New England and rented a house for a year in a neighborhood they suspected they might like but wanted to be sure. It seemed like a smart way to get their bearings without the stress of feeling like the move was only first of many but also with the knowledge that they weren’t stuck if they didn’t like it. Worked out well for them.
“Coach said no 3s.” - Zion on The Block
Ok so honest opinions needed. I was looking at some lennar homes and a floor plan that is $409k in holly springs is $366k in Fuquay Varina. High school would be Fuquay Varina high. The location is a little bit northeast of Holland. Any strong opinions?
Two things out that way... Sharon Harris Nuclear plant and the Wake County landfill. MKe sure you know where they are in relation to the house.
I'm not a big fan of Fuquay traffic and shopping. Something to check out for sure.
Are you set on new construction?
It's only 12,356 trips on NC 540. He'll go through that in no time! (Current rate $3.48, NC 55 to I-40.)
(Adding the specific toll information so our OP knows the added costs if traveling to RTP each day from Holly Springs/Fuquay.)
NC 540 is scheduled to be finished to I-40 near Garner in a couple of years (under construction now.) Traffic volume will pick up once it provides a bypass of Raleigh. That'll make travel on the south side of Wake County much easier (but at an additional cost.) The last segment, from the Garner I-40 interchange out to the other end of 540 at I-87 (US 64 bypass) near Knightdale, is scheduled to start in 2029.
I-40 is being widened between I-440 and NC 42 right now, so that stretch will be better. The next needed fix, at the US 1 interchange, will take a little while longer. There's also some relatively minor improvements, adding auxiliary lanes between exits in/near RTP, that are scheduled in the next few years as well.
I appreciate the information on the tolls. We have none of that in Vegas so it’s interesting. I’ll be working from home so no issue for me and my wife will be trying to land a teaching job close to home. She may have to commute farther out for awhile until something opens up at the local schools but it would be just temporary.
FWIW, I would prefer to live in Holly Springs over Fuquay but I wouldn't mind living in Fuquay, whether it was worth an extra $40k to satisfy that preference would probably depend mostly on my financial situation. It looks like Holly Springs High School is rated higher than Fuquay Varina High, but I don't have any personal experience or connections to either school to offer any insight on whether there is really much difference.
I would choose HS over FV as well but my bias is probably because I live in NW Raleigh (Leesville and I540) so HS feels close to home for me. One quick note about FV high school. They knocked it down last year and are building a new school. Students have been shuffled to other schools. I think another new school, Willow Springs HS is currently servicing FVHS students. I have a good friend that has 3 daughters that went through FV high school (his youngest is now a freshman at UNC-Charlotte, middle is a Marine and oldest completed a 2 year program at NCSU). He and his wife love FV. He and his wife frequent Aviator and meet friends there often (we have driven out to meet them there several times). To be blunt about FV, it's further out and you're going to find more rednecks there. Sometimes that's great, sometimes it's not (depending on what you like and what the situation is). My family is a bunch of SC rednecks so before anyone torches me, I use that term descriptively not negatively...rednecks are just like everyone else: pluses and minuses.
I would expect that FV will have more growth than HS (mostly because it's further out from Cary/Raleigh and HS has had tons of growth for a very long time).
Supposed to be retired, but that’s about 25-30 years out.
The express toll lanes in Charlotte on I-77 are run by a private entity (same as the Virginia I-95 express lanes) and they have a 50 year contract. Other express lanes run by the state will likely stay. The purpose is to guarantee a travel time, so tolls is the way to do that.
that and holly springs growth is really limited by being in close proximity to the nuke plant and the landfill. That said, there are plenty of $500-600k houses not to far from both...so what do I know.
If you want an older house, you can move straight north of where you are looking and get a 20-30 year old house with a good bit of land for about the same price. It really depends on how much you like older homes.
Thanks for the update on the construction schedule!
As only an occasional user of the toll part of NC-540, it's a godsend! Makes it a quick trip to go from I-40 to Holly Springs and back, rather than a tedious, traffic-laden arduous trip, and I'm perfectly happy to use either my Florida Sun Pass or NJ Easy Pass to pay the tolls, which are discounted when using the passes vs. the "pay by mail" price. I just have to be sure that one of the passes is in it's foil pouch so I don't get double billed by both! BTW, making it a toll road cut about 10 years off the construction schedule. And as to the question as to whether the tolls are permanent or temporary? Bwahahahaha! The tolls on the NJ Turnpike were supposed to be temporary when it was built (opening to traffic on Nov. 30, 1951 - I think OPK and Budwom remember it fondly!), but certainly remain, higher than ever, today.
It's like when they built the 278 bypass on Hilton Head Island - to pay a buck (now $1.25 I think) to miss 20 minutes of traffic going around the heel, from one end of the Island to the other, was well worth it to save the time. If you don't want to pay the toll, you have other free options, it just takes you more time to make the drive.
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You should look into getting an NC QuickPass. It’s the only electronic tolling device that is compatible with all east coast (and Midwest) toll facilities. It is good with the Florida SunPass, Georgia Peach Pass, North Carolina (of course) and all the EZ Pass facilities elsewhere. And, unlike the NJ EZ Pass, there’s no monthly fee (I assume NJ still charges $1/month.)
(This message brought to you by your friendly neighborhood state DOT.)
(Link for more information and to purchase the proper transponder: https://www.ncquickpass.com/resource...nsponders.aspx
Last edited by DU82; 08-18-2020 at 02:54 PM.