My husband and I are both native Southern Californian’s who have always thought of California as home. Most of our family and friends live there, so we’ve never really thought twice about moving. However, if you are at all familiar with California, you know it is extremely expensive to live there. Unfortunately, the areas that are affordable, may not be safe or may be far away from metro areas, so commuting is the only option. Commuting is something that many families do much to the dismay of not only the person doing it, but those who miss out on time with their loved ones since they’re in their car for long stretches each day.

My husband, Chris, has been in real estate for well over a decade and landed himself a great job for a company in San Diego several years ago. The problem was the commute from our home in the Inland Empire to his job was anywhere from 3-4 hours round trip each day. If you are so blessed to have either no commute, or very minimal like I was, then you probably won’t understand this. He did this commute for almost three years. About halfway through his second year of commuting, after countless hours spent looking for jobs closer to home, the discussion came up about moving. Moving within California was not an option, so we started to discuss out of state options. We went through the regular states that many Californians are running to like Arizona, Oregon and Washington, however, even those states are expensive for what our needs required. We needed to be near a large metro area for job opportunities, a safe area, good schools and family friendly.

Our top picks became Tennessee (Nashville) and North Carolina (Raleigh) which was a top 2 out of 50 for affordable cities. We had only been to both of these areas once, during a summer road trip in 2018 with very little time spent in each area. We started to do tons on research, deciding that Nashville was not for us, but contemplated one of the cities or towns outside of Raleigh. In December 2019, Chris and I decided to spend a weekend in Raleigh because no matter how much research we did online, we needed to see the area in person. Plane tickets were purchased, hotel and rental car booked when suddenly weather reports were calling for an apocalyptic-type storm the weekend we were planning to visit. We kept our plans, flying into Raleigh on a Friday night with no sign of a storm. Saturday morning we woke up at the hotel with close to half a foot of snow that had fallen overnight, nixing our “get out early of the hotel and check out houses” plan. Luckily, we booked a AWD SUV (thank you Nissan Rogue!) and decided to venture out a little before noon. We spent the next two days driving all over the area, in the snow, trying to decide if this could be our new home.

Our trip ended, the holidays came and went and we celebrated a new year. We finally decided, much to the dismay of family and friends, that we were moving to North Carolina. We bought our house online (Crazy, I know, but it all worked out!). Saying goodbye was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, but fortunately, the adjustment here has been quite easier than I had expected.

Children are resillient as I’m sure many of you know. My son started kindergarten, so it was a perfect time to move since he was just starting school. My daughter began second grade, so still fairly young for a big move. We made the kids involved in many aspects of the move including our virtual showings with our agent, picking out paint colors for their rooms, buying new furniture, etc. I wanted and needed them to feel involved, since the decision to move was ultimately made by Chris and I.

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We recently celebrated our first Christmas in our new state and it was very quiet. Not a bad thing, just something we are not used to. It was the first time in 37 years that I didn’t spend Christmas with my parents. It was bittersweet but thank goodness for technology! We were able to video chat all of the grandparents and our siblings on Christmas morning. Although it wasn’t the same, it was great being able to connect with all of our family spread out in different states. Xoxo

Nicole