SperlingViews - North_Charleston, South_carolina

Went to a good restaurant today (Cork) for dinner in Old N. Charleston. The food was reasonably priced and very good but was I suprized when I got the bill. 8.5 % Sales Tax, + 2% Hospitality Tax, + 5% Liquor by the drink tax. Wow! We won't be eating in North Charleston again. If thier aim was to drive away customers, they suceeded. [read more...]

I was stationed at the Charleston Naval Station in the early 90s and have regreted leaving ever since. Being a Navy guy meant I traveled a lot and had my girlfriend from my previous based area of Newport move down to the 'Lowcountry' to live with me. We got married sometime after and we set to stay but she became pregnant and there were complications with the baby and also we Navy folks were in the middle of decommissionings and base closures so I decided to get out of the service a little early and move north to here NE hometown of Fall River, Massachusetts. The 'Southcoast' area here is OKAY, however the quality of good paying jobs are scarce, the housing costs are high, a person must commute a much a 1-2 hours each way to find decent work, the Fall River community itself tends to be one giant eyesore with lots of crime for a small town, and the weather as a whole stinks with snow staying on the ground longer than should be humanly expected! And because of a poor job outlook, the people tend to be pretty negative and take a 'glass half empty' attitude. With all of that said, we have lived in another place besides in the northeast and that is Louisville, Ky. but for some reason my wife hated living there and the Greater Charleston area seemed to bring both the communities of Louisville and Southern New England together as far as we were concerned. We have a teen daughter now who is in to the arts and a 10 year old son who is gifted in the big 3 sports of basketball, baseball, and football and we as parents want a better opportunity for him to take advantage of those skills than what is here in Mass. We were very happy when we lived in SC before and are hoping to maybe catch 'lightning in a bottle' a second time and do what we should have done before and that is settle down and buy that 'southern cottage'. Any and all thoughts and advice would be much appreciated. ALSO, if the Charleston area might not be THE PLACE, please make some suggestions as to which southern or midwestern community might be a better fit for a family to finally settle down! Thanks!![read more...]

Charleston seems like a lovely place to live, until you realize that it's too expensive to actually live there. Instead, we all live in the surrounding cities, like North Charleston, and commute. Unfortunately, that old-timey charm means really poor roads, and very few direct routes from the suburbs into town. Commuting becomes a huge part of every day, which is something you need to plan for if you are thinking about living here.[read more...]

The local housing market, until recently, has been booming. Several builders have moved in (I can think of about 10 off the top of my head). Everywhere you go all you see is billboards for builders! I bought my house about a year ago, thinking I got a great deal. Shortly there after, when the housing crunch hit, houses stopped selling. The builders still could build for cheaper than they could sell, so they just keep building. This has priced most people out of being able to sell their home. Quality of most of the houses going up is inferior (Centex excluded), but most buyers arent able to tell the difference anyway. Beware of buying a house in the area- the builders will sink any hope of you getting out from under a housing purchase![read more...]