Money Magazine Ranks 2 North Carolina Cities Among Best To Live

MONEY Magazine has ranked two cities in North Carolina among the best places to live in America. The magazine teamed up with Realtor.com to crunch numbers on more than 135,000 data points. And while Frisco, Texas, ranked the best place to live in America — we’re not making that up — Cary and Chapel Hill in North Carolina can now boast that they too are among the nation’s best.

MONEY ranked Cary, N.C. no. 5 in the country, just ahead of Franklin, Tennessee and just behind Ellicott City, Maryland. The magazine highlighted higher average incomes, smaller-city feel and higher levels of education in Cary as reasons it’s one of the best places to live. Here’s what the magazine had to say:

Cary has “all of the amenities of a larger city, but with a smaller population,” bookstore owner Mike Cullen told the magazine.

Meanwhile, Chapel Hill, North Carolina ranked no. 33 in the country, sandwiched between St. Charles, Missouri and Schaumburg, Illinois. The “college-town feel” and “vibrant downtown” were cited as reasons to live in Chapel Hill. Here’s what MONEY had to say:

“The city is known for its racially diverse, well-educated population; with over three-quarters of the population holding a college degree or higher, the excellent education system is a big draw for families.”

There are heaps of gorgeous homes on the market in Chapel Hill, including this renovated five-bedroom Victorian built in the late 1880s:

110 Old Legacy Ln, Chapel Hill, NC 27516

$1,500,000
Bedrooms: 5
Baths: 4 full, 1 half
Square Footage: 6,397
Year Built: 1887

But as great as those cities are to live in, they aren’t Frisco, located about 30 miles north of Dallas in Texas. Frisco — dubbed by MONEY as a “boomtown” — topped the list. Below are the top 10 places to live in the U.S. according to the magazine.

1. Frisco, TX
2. Ashburn, VA
3. Carmel, IN
4. Ellicott City, MD
5. Cary, NC
6. Franklin, TN
7. Dublin, CA
8. Highlands Ranch, CO
9. Sammamish, WA
10. Woodbury, MN

The authors said Frisco, once a tiny rail town, has seen strong job growth and attracted major companies, including T-Mobile and Oracle. It became the fastest-growing city in America by the middle of last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Job growth is expanding in Texas as fast as anywhere,” Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told MONEY. “Firms are moving to provide jobs where houses are affordable, and people are moving to jobs where the cost of living is not high.”

Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox Software, which is headquartered in Frisco, told the magazine the city’s quality of life has improved as its population has increased — something all cities can aspire to.

“The mentality here is, Let’s build the place we all want to have fun in and live in,” Pitchford said.

According to MONEY, Frisco has great weather — more than 230 clear days a year — and a median family income of about $129,000. The median home costs about $349,0000 and nearly every high schooler graduates.
Danielle Hale of Realtor.com told the magazine that while Frisco home prices are higher than most of the country, it’s a great choice for people because of its affordability to monthly income ratio.

“It’s actually lower than what we see throughout the U.S.,” she said.

A typical family in Frisco can pay off a new home more than twice as fast as those in Boston, the magazine said.

Most of the “Best Places to Live” are suburbs, Hale said, because these areas are near cities — and opportunities — and are often more affordable, meaning you can get more space for less cash. When compiling the rankings, the magazine weighted economic health, public school quality and local amenities as the most important factors. Housing, cost of living and diversity were also key factors. Click here to read the full methodology.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

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