She's obviously using this site to further her real estate career. This woman posts negative reviews on every popular city, and then tells everyone "why we moved to Wilmington" so that she can get real estate clients.
Angela | Dallas, TX | Report Abuse

She's obviously using this site to further her real estate career. This woman posts negative reviews on every popular city, and then tells everyone "why we moved to Wilmington" so that she can get real estate clients.
Angela | Dallas, TX | Report Abuse

This comment is funny to me, because I lived in Wilmington and absolutely hated it, whereas I love Raleigh. Wilmington has plenty of negatives, too, if you're wearing the right colored glasses. Examples: -Giant cockroaches everywhere. Can't go for a stroll at night wearing open-toed shoes. Seriously, roaches, roaches, roaches everywhere you look. -WAY too many people in way too small a space means traffic is ungodly. A trip to the beach that should take 15 minutes is an hour. -And when you get to the beach, it's always, always packed. Finding parking is expensive or impossible. -Crime, drugs, opiates, alcoholism. People living in the projects. I never saw poverty like I did in Wilmington. People just come here to burn out. Forever. -Very, very rednecky. Except for the people who all seem to come from New Jersey, who are a different sort of annoying. -Not enough jobs for the area. If you lose a job in Wilmington, you'll probably have to move. Lose your job in Raleigh, and there are hundreds of other marketing companies in the area. Now, does all this mean Wilmington's a bad city? Is Raleigh a bad city? Is either a good city? No. They both are good and both bad. And a lot of what makes a city good or bad (in my aged experience) is the people you're with. You can sit in a cozy waterfront historic district bungalow and be utterly miserable...or sit in your crappy little $1,000 Raleigh apartment and be totally happy. I won't say "it's up to you", because it isn't; it's up to your circumstances...good family, good job, good commute. I've lived in Boone, Greensboro, Asheville, Wilmington, and Raleigh and I finally see that now.
Avery | Greensboro, NC | Report Abuse

Yopu use terms such as we and us. I will take a wild guess and say you are 50/60 something empty nesters looking for a small cozy Mayberry pretty port town not too crowded with art galleries window shopping and couples meals on the water. For me as a single guy this is BORING beyond belief. Wilmington is just that and it goes to show the subjectivity of these [posts, I would say if you are single of ANY age you will hate the inaneness and pace of Wilmington, lack of strong nightlife and lack of a party culture. Raleigh is of course more crowded and active and busy but that gives it the allure to a single man or woman looking for some edge and spark and nightlife if you're considering NC there really is no other choice . forget these smaller baby boomer empty nester couples places like Wilmington and Asheville. You'll be there for a week and be bored out of your mind. To the older Boomers with a significant other in tow have at it with the Wilmingtons of the world. Hilton head another good boomer escape. Be careful when you read these reviews who they are written by meaning what demographic they are from in comparison to your own. In summary and generally speaking Single and under 50 Raleigh Durham forget the rest.
Edmund | Spring Valley, NV | Report Abuse

JUST 6 months of research? We're here in SFrancisco and I've been looking for 2.5 YEARS. Of course -- I have Golden Gate Park (larger than Central Park in NYC) 3 doors from my house, my summers are "nuclear summers" spent under a dark canopy of drippy fog and late May - early Sept the most normal days are 56-60 degrees (and often "white outs" that leave me unable to see even a block away) -- plus a "brisk" icy wind off the Pacific fog. SO...when I read that the "average" summer temp is 85, I totally freak out. Earthquakes? I'm a San Franciscan -- lived through the '89 one no problem. One could come at any time -- or not come in my lifetime (I'm 65). HURRICANES are what freak me out. They come EVERY year and global warming is making them much more frequent and stronger. We can't afford to stay in SF once we retire -- have to live off the money we'll get selling our home. And also -- here on the NW side of SF is "suburban San Francisco" -- it's deteriorating but is still nice (remember: no fog in the winter and the weather is the same -- I run in shorts and t-short on Ocean Beach in January, because there's no fog to create the icy wind and it will be 62 degrees! Just think of us as New Zealand -- which is actually where half the plants/trees in GGPark are native to...) But tragically, my lovely beautiful, charming, beloved-by-the-world city is now a nightmare. I won't upset you all with details -- and the are extremely upsetting. We were looking seriously at the Chapel Hill/Raleigh area -- flew back and stayed 2x. Wanted the diversity and bustle and intellectual life that large university towns provide (I grew up in Palo Alto; myhusband lived in Cambridge after his graduation); the great health care and the more international/liberal attitudes of the Chapel Hill area -- and the small amount of snow. But the building is shockingly frenzied -- what others verified here is true -- no way the infrastructure can keep up and any 2-lane road that has a fair amount of traffic on it today is going to be a 6-lane expressway in 5 years. It's awful. Housing prices for CRAPPY ugly homes have all doubled in the last 2 year I've been watching, there's absolutely NO "walkability" and "fine dining" seems to be Hardees and Chick-Fil-A. (We did eat at some good restaurants - Palio and Squid's had some of the best seafood I've ever eaten in my life -- just PERFECT along with their hushpuppies!) As for Raleigh -- there is absolutely NO "there" there -- we went to a show at the historic, legendary Lincoln Theatre -- and learned they're fighting to keep from being torn down! (Amazingly they have a parking lot next door that is...(wait for it!) FREE. I write this and am still stunned. It would've been TWENTY DOLLARS (or more) in San Francisco! But still doesn't make up for the summer heat, the lack of ability to walk anywhere, the shocking, appalling urban sprawl. Haven't any of these people hear of global warming? Why are they building -- literally -- tens of thousands of houses that will be TOTALLY dependent on cars for transportation?!
steve | San Francisco, CA | Report Abuse

I’m glad you found your best place, but it’s not great that you left negative and condescending reviews of several other cities in your wake.
Noelle | Albuquerque, NM | Report Abuse

I had to leave Wilmington. While I enjoyed the downtown area the traffic was far more horrific for such a small place, you couldn't get anywhere on the peninsula in under 30 minutes. I lived less than 5 miles from my job and it took me 20 minutes in the morning to get there and I was no where near the beach for work which is far worse and backs up the whole town. The people are snotty if local and drunk if not, they are constantly building with no way to relieve the traffic congestion, and other than the over-crowded and dismal beach area of Carolina Beach or Kure (rental units on stilts that are not in the best of shape and on top of each other), there isn't anything there that you can't get anywhere else. The food, as in any city, can be good, bad, or just so-so. You find the places you like to go and stick with it. There really, other than the expensive Wrightsville Beach, isn't much around it to do either. One small art museum, one theater, a small expensive aquarium, and drunken night life of downtown. There are good things, the sound is pretty if you can get to it, the housing costs are lower but the expectation of buyers is high for the cost, and with so much new construction of course the market is stable and low. Don't expect to make money there. The employers know that they are the only game in town and draw to a beach front town makes it easy to get help. The turn over is high and the salaries are low. They are selling off huge golf courses to build condos and apartments on already busy and gridlocked main roads. The city government is killing the atmosphere there. I won't even get into the huge drug problem and human trafficking that don't get mentioned. Check the crime rates per population. And weather? EVERY hurricane that comes floods Kure and Carolina Beaches and leaves the place a mess. Even those areas not in the flood zone are hard hit by high winds and torrential rains. While the weather is nice most of the time, those storms are at minimal annual and often several times a year.
Lisa | Four Oaks, NC | Report Abuse