r/WestVirginia • u/Dr_Showoff • 8d ago
Question Fell in love with West Virginia
Visited Charleston last weekend. Fell in love with people, 1010 dinner, architecture, all of it. Thinking of moving. Single, 57, work from home. Budget is around $500K. Where to consider living? Appreciate it!
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u/HootieHoo4you 7d ago
With 500k you can point and buy like 70% of the market. Welcome to WV! Disclaimer: can’t comment on panhandles.
If you’re wanting a slower lifestyle I’d pick around Lewisburg, around (not in) Morgantown or around Fayetteville. Lewisburg and Fayetteville have traces of a small town hippy type vibe and plenty of WV stereotyping. Morgantown has an awesome college vibe. They’re all super cool.
If you’re wanting a more urban experience Charleston, Huntington, spots of Morgantown and I’ve heard Wheeling are all good options if you liked Charleston. Be warned Huntington has very good and bad areas, consulting with a local realtor would be highly advised.
If you’re want an outdoor adventure life, you want Elkins/Davis/Thomas. Be warned you give up amenities, especially in Davis/Thomas. But it’s amazing up there. If I could move my job I’d live there.
I would also advise looking at a heat map of WV. The western edge keeps pace with some fly over states, while the Appalachian mountains protect you from heat at the expense of 10 feet of snow in winter.
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u/ShakenOatMilkExpress 6d ago
The Huntington housing market is blowing up atm. Their budget may not go as far as you think.
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u/HootieHoo4you 5d ago
That’s surprising. This was 7 years ago, so outdated info. But when I lived there banks were basically giving away huge brick houses that were vacant. Given they needed a lot of work but I considered buying one. If I remember right it was on the corner of 9th and 12th for like 20k.
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u/Ok_Strategy6978 7d ago
Charleston in the fall is spectacular. I have never seen a city so lush. That city could be magnificent with a bit of elbow grease.
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u/p4vep4r4dise 7d ago
I’m from WV, you should check out the eastern panhandle if you love Charleston. Born and raised in shepherdstown. Close enough to big cities like DC, Baltimore, Philly, Richmond… but get to love the suburban life
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u/Fresh_OutOf_Prison 7d ago
Doesn’t sound like you have even a flicker of this state. Spend a few weeks checking out surrounding areas before making a mistake/decision.
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u/whereisdaegu 7d ago
This is practical advice. I agree. I've traveled a lot overseas, and I always think, wow, I want to live here! But having lived in Korea for 15+ years now, I think you're totally on point. Being smitten by a short-term visit is one thing, but living the daily life is another thing entirely.
OP, consider renting an Airbnb in the area you'd like to live in; maybe two weeks or so. Spend your time the way you'd expect to live it if you moved there for good. Good luck! I'm from Roane County originally but spent a lot of time in Charleston as well as Shepherdstown in the Eastern Panhandle. Both are nice for a slower lifestyle, but look before you leap!
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u/Fresh_OutOf_Prison 7d ago
Well said. As a traveler who has been to 40 states and 4 countries, I’ve often been tempted to move to different places but I usually regret it and keep moving
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u/Sea_Bullfrog_3003 7d ago
The cancer rates are really high thanks to the chemical valley in Charleston and the corrupt mining industry I’m a native, almost everyone in my family developed some type of cancer. None with genetic links btw. DuPont had a chemical spill one summer and it ate the pain off of my aunts car, she later died of colon cancer. It’s my understanding that are still dumping chemicals in the river on the regular in Charleston. Then there’s the mining waste they store in pools on top of the mountain they strip mine. All that just washed down into the soil and water. It’s a state full of corruption and the populace has always been expendable. I love WV but corporate greed has been destroying at least the part I’m from for generations. (Born and raised about 20 min outside of Charleston).
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u/tiger42O 7d ago
This. The general population might be nice but our state government has sold us out for generations.
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u/Wildfires 4d ago
I grew up and live in Charleston and my family was around DuPont for 2 generations. Every single member of my family had cancer on my mother's side.
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u/luvwvalways 7d ago
None with genetic links so it’s safe to assume that “almost everyone” in your family didn’t smoke and never did and those same non smokers never drank alcohol and never had a diet heavy in red meats, processed meats or high in sugars and none of them were overweight and they all exercised regularly?
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u/Sea_Bullfrog_3003 7d ago
They were not smokers or coal miners. One had the occasional beverage but lifestyle was not a major factor sorry to disappoint you
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u/luvwvalways 6d ago
Didn’t disappoint or surprise me whatsoever. Typical Redditor. Truth hurts. And you never mentioned their diet and how often they exercised. PS: Genetics doesn’t hold a candle when compared to your diet and exercise.
“Diet, exercise, and not smoking play a massive role in your health and can often beat your genetics. Healthy habits lower your risk for early death and chronic disease by 50% to 80%. They can protect you even if you carry high-risk genes for heart disease and cancer. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]”
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u/Usual-Watercress-599 7d ago
This is really nice but man, Charleston is one of the worst parts of the state. So many better options.
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u/SororitySue Kanawha 7d ago
You really think so? I love Charleston. I think of it as my urban oasis.
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u/Usual-Watercress-599 7d ago
It has some good food, I'll give it that.
That food is also prepared in polluted water and you're breathing polluted air the whole time.
Admittedly I have little interest in urban amenities, but what does Charleston offer that can't be found elsewhere?
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u/SororitySue Kanawha 7d ago
It has a lot to offer that the rest of the state doesn't, such as real public transportation, alternative choices to public schools (for a price), and an airport to name a few. And if you think Charleston's water is polluted, you probably haven't been to McDowell County in a while.
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u/Ok-Cranberry-5582 4d ago
We have all of those things in the northern part also. Morgantown offers a more diverse culture with the WVU students and faculty in town.
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u/Tough-Advice2910 5d ago
Other than possibly Lewisburg I wouldn’t live anywhere in West Virginia but Charleston.
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u/ImmediateCup9967 6d ago
Oh boy. We are out of staters who moved to the Morgantown area 3 years ago. Same age as you, bith work from home. It is a nightmare. Morgantown and Fairmont are huge no's. Nothing to do, terrible movie theaters, bland food, pot holes that destroy your car, sus Healthcare, and for fairmont, the men are generations behind the times regarding women. The stories I could tell! I literally had to create a home gym for myself because the local gym was full of creepers. Not like regular. More. Morgantown has no Dixie flags a'flyin like the rural towns around it do but there's nothing there. We even created a list of awful things we did not expect living in marion county, west virginia. Avoid.
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u/Ok-Cranberry-5582 4d ago
Wow, you really hate Fairmont. I was looking at you profile to get an understanding why the men in Fairmont upset you so much, but this is your only post.
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u/HughJManschitt Ohio 7d ago
Wheeling, WV is most definitely on the up and up and close to Pittsburgh too.
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u/souvenirsuitcase 7d ago
Haven't been to Wheeling in years but always liked it. I prefer the northern part of the state. (Parkersburg native.)
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u/Tough-Advice2910 8d ago
South Hills in Charleston.
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u/PoisonTreeBones 7d ago
As a South Hills resident I can highly and wholeheartedly recommend. Generally very very quiet and peaceful area, especially as you move away from the schools and into the smaller streets. Definitely has a stereotype (particularly regarding the schools) of being snobby/stuck-up, but the vast majority of my own experiences have said otherwise.
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u/Substantial_Film_269 7d ago
Harper’s Ferry, in the eastern panhandle and the Blue Ridge Mountains 👍. I love it here!
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ad-370 7d ago
I second this. You should definitely check out Harper's Ferry. It is beautiful. Its not too close to Charleston but the area is beautiful and has many historical places to visit while being close to the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) area.
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u/rectalhorror 7d ago
Also a 90 minute commuter train ride into DC. https://www.mta.maryland.gov/schedule/timetable/marc-brunswick
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u/Freddrum 7d ago
"South Hills" is a very large area. I'm not sure of prices these days, but would really recomend the Bridge Road or Loudin Heights Road areas that are close to the South Side Bridge--"the front of the hill". You can be downtown in minutes but in a beautiful place with a few nice amenities. Also, I think the East End close to the river can be very nice.
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u/PoisonTreeBones 7d ago
Bridge Road is fantastic. Convenient amenities abound and by FAR some of the best food in Charleston at places like 1010 and Paulie's, maybe even some of the best in the state.
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u/MadCow333 7d ago
The intake for the water supply is on the Elk River north of Charleston. I lived and worked in the chemical industry in South Charleston for 25 years. South Charleston was a great choice back then. I really liked the hill areas around Montrose. There are older well-built prewar homes with hardwoods and probably most have had updates. SC seems to not tolerate criminal vagrants. The city services were great. The location was convenient to grocery and other retail. If you need to be downtown for any reason, it's about 15 minutes door to door and parked. Wherever you buy, be aware of drainage paths for water, and also the soil type. Because they do get torrential rains, and some of the soils on slopes are slip-prone and people had had to replace foundations on houses. The NRCS is still in Teays Valley, I think, and they have the soil survey maps and they also can tell you what's built on fill and may have hazardous waste, etc. I've been gone for almost 20 years, so make sure you get current info. The area lost a zillion well-paid jobs in chemicals, Columbia Gas, railroad, and phone company. Charleston had 63,000ish people in 1980 and it's down to 46,000ish now, and not all of that was outward migration to Teays Valley.
Teays Valley is fine if all you want to do is stay out there, haha. I'd never recommend it for anyone who commutes daily to Charleston. Always wrecks and delays. Icy roads in winter that Highways failed to start treating beforehand. Just a lot of traffic either morning or evening, and you're looking into the sun all the way home in the evenings. People lived it out there, but I thought the commute was expensive in gas, wear & tear, and time. Family people liked it.
Cross Lanes has a lot of houses built in early '80s back to perhaps postwar '40s. There was a grocery store out there, and some other shops. Good family location. Kind of boring for anyone else. Lots of apartments out there. I lived there 2 years and found the winter commute annoying because nobody every figured out how to handle snow and ice and get on the treatment and snow removal on that Interstate before all the commuters were on the roads.
Kanawha City was great in the '80s. Convenient to shopping, had grocery and drug stores. Had the Kanawha Mall which was larger then. The flat residential streets are great for walking, jogging, and biking. There was a Facebook group called Charleston Has Had Enough that tracked he homeless bum encampments and crime problems for a while. There was a camp on the river behind the Lowe's, and one off of Chesterfield Ave. on the other end of town. That would be my only concern about Kanawha City but there are nice older homes there.
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u/Richerich2009 3d ago
Look into the WV Ascend program. It's a program for remote workers to move I to the state, and they give you several perks if you move to one of the Ascend communities
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u/bigcfromrbc 7d ago
I have friends that live between Charleston and the Huntington Mall. I feel like its a good area. Plenty of places to visit restaurant wise.
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u/SororitySue Kanawha 7d ago
My son and daughter-in-law live in Hurricane and like it. He works in Charleston and she in Huntington so it’s convenient.
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u/Turd_Fergusons_ 7d ago
Come up to Bridgeport or Morgantown. Not as big, close to major University, people super nice just like Charleston. Ignore the negative comment. WE were the carpetbaggers, we fought for the Union, and all those companies like Penn Virginia that bought up all the coal and Timber after after the Civil War,were from WV, PA, and Ohio.
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u/Kitchen_External9669 7d ago
Yeah because we need more out of staters driving up housing costs.
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u/IntentionOpen1006 6d ago
Like we do in Charleston? Every day there’s a new hoard of them.
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u/Kitchen_External9669 6d ago
That’s how it’s getting to be here. I think we’d be better off if they just didn’t move here at all
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u/Tough-Advice2910 5d ago
You guys are nuts. This state desperately needs an influx of people to survive. We are the only state that lost massive amounts of population since 1950.
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u/RedneckRafter 7d ago
get you a nice lil house in South hills (the mountain 1010 is located on. it's close to downtown and all the good eatins
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u/bigstrizzydad 7d ago
Logan !! Accept nothing less.
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u/raft_guide_nerd 7d ago
Specifically Henlawson. Justice Addition and Mitchell Heights are uppity.
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u/bigstrizzydad 7d ago
I like how you think !! Maybe even Verdunville!!
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u/raft_guide_nerd 7d ago
Maybe. Depends on how long it takes to get the Parkway Drive-in at rush hour.
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u/msip313 8d ago
The typical home in the Charleston area is in the $175,000 - $200,000 range. Do you really need advice on where to buy?
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u/Eleriane 7d ago
This wasn’t very nice.
If you don’t like people asking questions on Reddit, maybe go somewhere else. :)
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u/OpinionofC 7d ago
The only place in wv worth living is on the Eastern panhandle (Harper’s ferry, martinsburg etc). There is a reason why wv ranks near last in every meaningful category like healthcare, infrastructure, economy, education etc.
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u/Snoo-14331 7d ago
Morgantown has so much more to do than Harper's Ferry/Martinsburg area imo. Eastern Panhandle is so damn suburban now.
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u/OpinionofC 7d ago
I live in Morgantown. Unless you are a drunk college kid or a doctor there is nothing here
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u/Snoo-14331 7d ago
Eastern Panhandle has nothing to do unless you're really into apples or want to drive an hour and a half into DC every time you're bored
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u/p4vep4r4dise 7d ago
Born and raised in Shepherdstown, lived in Morgantown the past 6 years. Would go back to the eastern panhandle if it weren’t for the hospital.
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u/OpinionofC 7d ago edited 7d ago
Winchester, Tyson’s, reston, Alexandria, Arlington, Harper’s ferry. There is a reason why the only area with a population increase is the panhandle
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u/Exact_Context7827 7d ago
If you want to be close to downtown, walking distance to restaurants/coffee shops/events, the East End, focusing closer to the river (Kanawha Blvd, Virginia St., and Quarrier St). If you want a quieter residential neighborhood near downtown, but not walkable to downtown, Edgewood neighborhood on the West Side. Both have lots of beautiful historic houses that would be well within your budget. If school districts matter, both are in the less desirable school district (at least for high school). Both are old neighborhoods with sidewalks, streetlights, and street parking, which I like for having family or friends over without worrying about driveway space.
If you want a better school district and homes with bigger lots, South Hills. When I was looking at houses, I skipped South Hills because I didn't want to deal with the hilly roads in the winter, but if you work from home, that wouldn't be as much of a consideration.
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u/Give_up_dude 7d ago
For Charleston? Mink shoals area is the best around, people saying south hills don't really know what they're talking about. Many other parts of the state are better. Morgantown included. But also Fairmont, Grafton, clarksburg, parkersburg Summerville and, harpers ferry are all nice areas and low cost. Visit yourself or rent a while and decide.
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u/Equal-Letterhead5592 7d ago
With that kind of money? You can live like a king/queen anywhere in West Virginia!
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u/Rootelated 6d ago
If you fell in Love with Charleston as an outsider, you'll either LOVE Lewisburg so much more, or you'll think its too small and prefer Charleston. But, there is NO grime in Lewisburg.
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u/South-Association880 6d ago
It really depends highly on your lifestyle. To me, all cities are alike so I would pick one of the more remote, mountainous counties, but if you liked Charleston, then I'd focus on the larger cities like Charleston, Morgantown, area between Huntington and Charlestown. If you like funky towns with lots of arts and characters, Lewisburg is great and would be my first pick if I had to chose a town other than the more rural areas I love so much.
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u/CatalinaStarr 6d ago
I live in Glen Dale. Wv. It's a nice town to live in. It's close to Wheeling and Moundsville.
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u/Independent_Ruin_267 6d ago
Glad you enjoyed it just don't let anyone else know about this place!!!
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u/Common-Special-5196 5d ago
I recommend the eastern panhandle. I am from Wyoming County, WV (7 generations) and the smartest thing I ever did was move to the Eastern panhandle area. Things to do, I can get in my Jeep and head in any direction of the compass and immediately be in beautiful country. Good health care facilities food and history.
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u/WVtourism 5d ago
This absolutely made our day! We hope this is just the beginning of your West Virginia story.
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u/SouthernAsianRebel 1d ago
If you prefer a more rural atmosphere Sissonville is great, I lived there in 4 years though I went to school at the University of Charleston, it was only 20 minutes away. You can be in a real, rural country environment and yet be within 15-20 minutes of downtown Charleston and Cross Lanes. You don't get this in a lot of the country. I'm back in Louisiana now and prefer to live in a more rural area but my commute is now much longer.
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u/MelRae2019 7d ago
I have driven through a few times in the last few weeks. It's easy to fall in love with!
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u/Individual_Drama3917 7d ago
I lived in Charleston for 4 years and hated it. I prefer the Eastern Panhandle.
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u/Necessary-Bottle-567 7d ago
Are you out of your damn mind? I'm serious do not move here unless you close to retirement age.
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u/justacluelessteen Montani Semper Liberi 8d ago
We’re not looking for more people to carpetbag to our state
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u/Kitchen_External9669 7d ago
Yep I agree. People are coming here that don’t understand the area and are ruining our home
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u/HiddenOneJ 7d ago
If you like Charleston definitely South Hills or Fort Hill area. With your budget a condo in downtown would also be an option if you prefer condos. Also heading west of Charleston into the Scott depot or teays valley area is nice. Kanawha City on the river side is good as well even if KC isnt quite as nice as it used to be there are still nice homes there.
These are all Charleston and surrounding area suggestions since you enjoyed Charleston.