South Carolina Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Possible move to Charleston
Hello ladies,
My husband and I might be relocating to the Charleston, SC area. Can I pick your brain on cool neighborhoods to live in. We currently live in Atlanta in a pretty fun neighborhood, Little 5/VA Highlands area...so we would want to live somewhere similar in Charleston. Any thoughts?
My husband and I might be relocating to the Charleston, SC area. Can I pick your brain on cool neighborhoods to live in. We currently live in Atlanta in a pretty fun neighborhood, Little 5/VA Highlands area...so we would want to live somewhere similar in Charleston. Any thoughts?
Re: Possible move to Charleston
I have some info on Charleston linked in my bio if you want more resources.
Are you planning to buy right away? As with any move, I'd recommend renting for a while first to get a feel for the neighborhoods. Best place to be IMO is downtown (on the peninsula) south of the crosstown - you can bike or walk anywhere downtown easily. Rent will be at least $1000 for a 1-2 bedroom. We share one car and only use it 1-2x per week - we bike and walk everywhere else.
North of the crosstown on the peninsula is also great - especially close to Hampton Park. This is a more affordable area to buy and still be downtown. Some of the neighborhoods appear kind of shady, but are actually really nice when you get to know them and get to know the people.
I would avoid Mt Pleasant like the plague, and personally I would hate to drive in from North Charleston, although there are some super affordable areas up there.
Avondale/Windermere/etc in West Ashley is pretty cute, as is Riverland Terrace on James Island (to echo the pp). Just know that it may require a lot of driving to live there. Folly Road and Savannah Hwy are the main arteries and the traffic can be really nightmareish (and the strip malls hurt my eyes).
Good luck! It's a really neat city with lots of good food, local identity, and outdoors fun. It is a bit expensive as the COL is not really in sync with the salaries (Charleston itself is expensive as far as housing and food, but salaries are not great).
I'll echo PPs and say the only neighborhoods in Charleston that I would consider are anywhere downtown south of the Crosstown/Hwy 17 minus East Side; downtown north of the Crosstown: Wagener Terrace, Hampton Park Terrace, North Central west of King St; in West Ashley: Avondale, Moreland, Byrnes Down, Ashley Forest; on James Island: Riverland Terrace. Riverland Terrace is probably the farthest drive that I would consider - it's about 10 minutes from downtown.
Hope that helps!
My parents live on Maclendon in ATL, near little 5 points.
I currently live in Wagoner Terrace in Charleston and LOVE IT. It is very convenient both to downtown and to Mount Pleasant/West Ashley. There are several houses that have been on the market for one year plus, so you should be able to find a pretty good deal. The housing prices are pretty high, but they are coming down like they are everywhere, and coming from Atlanta, you will probably not be too shocked, just do not expect it to be "cheap." From talking to my parents, Wagoner Terrace is a little less expensive than the little 5 area in ATL, but not by much.
DH lived in Charleston for 2 years and we spend as much time there as possible since moving back to PA so I'm quite curious--Why avoid Mt Pleasant like the plague? ANd Dh had an apartment in Castlewood which was really quite nice. It wasn't a new complex but it was still well maintained, had several pools a fitness center,lake, volleyball area, picnic pavillian, and his apt was a 2 br with screened porch 1.5 bath and W/D in unit and central air. Plus it was about $200 less than a lot of the complexes and larger square footage. What is the criteria you are using? Oh, and it would be considered West Ashley. His first apartment was in N. Charleston, which.....well it was well priced but I"ll leave it at that. I personally wouldn't do N, Chase again. I guess it boils down to price.
Also be wary of ads that say of condos/townhouses. Many are really single wide moble homes that are just icky. Lastly, stay away from the naval yard area. Not the best area in the city to say the least.
I'm the one who said avoid Mt Pleasant like the plague. I am assuming that the OP likes an urban lifestyle, based on her post about their ATL neighborhood. I think MtP is the antithesis of all that is good and urban. It's a lifestyle choice -- so to ME, it's bad. To someone like me, probably also bad. But it obviously suits lots of people, based on it's growth. That growth is totally unsustainable, but that's another story.
The reasons I said to avoid it were its sprawl, dependence on cars, strip malls, horrible traffic, and that it's predominantly new cookie cutter construction of questionable quality. Similar issues in West Ashley, especially along Savannah hwy, but I still think those neighborhoods have a lot more charm.
That said, I'm sure it has better schools than downtown, and Old Town Mt Pleasant is just as cute as can be. I did forget about that in my first post. I *think* however that it's prohibitively expensive, like south of Broad downtown.