Before I came back to NJ 101.5 last August, I had a few months where things were quiet on the radio front in New Jersey and over in Philly. Quiet enough that my phone started ringing from other places.
Charlotte. Raleigh. Two separate conversations with two separate radio stations in North Carolina. I did the interviews. I listened to their stations carefully and gave their managers honest thoughts on how to improve their programming. I went far enough down the road that I had to actually think about it — not as a hypothetical, but as a real decision Linda and I would have to make about our lives.
I did not take either job. I came home to NJ 101.5 instead, which is exactly where I belong. But I spent enough time with those numbers — housing, taxes, cost of living — that they are still sitting in my head. And every time I read about another wave of New Jersey residents heading south, I think about what I saw.
What $500,000 buys you there
The median home price in Charlotte right now is around $415,000. In Raleigh it is around $426,000. That means $500,000 is not the ceiling — it is well above the median. It buys you a serious house. A newer construction home in a desirable suburb. Four bedrooms, three baths, a two-car garage, a backyard worth using. In some neighborhoods, a finished basement and a covered porch on top of that…