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Telecommuters blend Southern lifestyle, higher wages
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
An American flag waves over the front steps just beyond a Bradford pear tree wearing the first flush of summer green. In the backyard of this tidy, three-bedroom house on a James Island cul-de-sac, marsh grasses wave in the sun. Ruger, a four-month-old German shepherd puppy, is the first to greet guests at the door.
This is home for Mara and Jeremy Read, newlyweds of less than a year. It is also where they work. The couple set up home offices in September and kissed the hustle and bustle of the big city goodbye. They have traded 24th Street in midtown Manhattan for Fiddle Way, less than 10 minutes from Folly Beach.
“I’m from the South, so I never intended to stay in New York forever. I just intended to go there and work for awhile,” Mara Read said.
The lure of a lucrative salary is not what brought the couple to the Lowcountry. The Reads are among a growing number of professionals who live in the land of live oaks and egrets but have kept their big city paychecks.
“They’re moving here for the lifestyle, which is the reason we moved here,” Mara Read said. “That’s pretty much the draw, I think. If I were working for a Charleston-based company, I would probably be making about 25 percent less.”
Pat Mason, co-founder of the Center for Carolina Living in Columbia, said there will be 150,000 new faces in South Carolina this year.
“We’re importing families that have an (average) household income of $119,000,” Mason said. “That’s like triple the average South Carolina household income. Our best estimate is that real estate development companies in South Carolina will spend $30 million a year in out-of-state marketing for people to come and look.”
For the Reads, Charleston is mid-way between Mara’s family in Birmingham and Jeremy’s family in Baltimore. There were also other reasons the couple planned their New York exit.
“I think I missed the genuine relationships, the hospitality, the quiet,” Mara Read said. “I went to New York to be in an exciting place, to be anonymous, and I came back for the opposite reasons.”
Mara Read had worked for three years in marketing for a financial magazine when she and her husband decided it was time to leave New York. Jeremy Read works in sales for a mutual fund proxy fund and had worked in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco before spending the past five years with his New York firm.
“New York started to feel a little unsafe with the terrorist stuff,” Jeremy Read said. “I hate to say that for the people back in New York, but I said, ‘I don’t know if this is the best place to spend the next 10 years.’”
Starting a family sometime in the future is another reason the couple came to South Carolina.
“Jeremy went to school in South Carolina, which is where his love of South Carolina and I think the South, basically, came from,” Mara Read said. “As soon as we met, I knew he was going to want to move back below the Mason-Dixon line, which made me happy.”
Three computers with wireless Internet connections, a scanner and a new telephone system were about all it took to get the couple working at their New York jobs from their James Island digs. They also needed the blessings of their respective companies.
“Both of us approached our employers, and we just submitted a proposal so that we could work remotely,” Mara Read said. “We made sure we set up the details so it was less scary for them.”
They both fly to their New York offices regularly. Non-stop flights from Charleston make the trek in an hour and a half. The business trips also give the Reads a chance to see old friends and visit their favorite New York restaurants. The couple says the new arrangement is working out for both of them, although they’ve had to make a few adjustments.
“Certainly there are drawbacks to everything,” Jeremy Read said. “Chances are, I’m not going to be named president of my company down here, but it’s nice having the salary here.”
Mara Read misses the relationships that can be made with people in an office.
“The camaraderie and also sometimes the motivation is lacking,” she said. “Being around other people working stimulates me to work a little bit harder, so we try to stay focused. But definitely bringing a New York job here is nice. For us, we get to keep our salaries we were making before and get to keep our big insurance plans.”
The new home offices also come with better views. Both of the spare bedrooms where the Reads work face the waving grasses of the salt marsh. In New York, Jeremy Read used to look out at an opposite skyscraper and a ledge of roofing below. A patch on the lower roof marked the spot of a suicide, where a person had jumped from the window of a travel agency 22 floors above.
Working from home also means a shorter workday at times. Without meetings, conference calls and co-worker chats around the water cooler, Mara Read thinks she can do in five hours what used to take her nine hours to do.
The Reads are also getting more bang for their buck in the Charleston housing market. The roomy James Island house they are renting while they hunt for a permanent home costs the same as the 400-square-foot, one-room studio they rented in Manhattan, about $1,300 a month.
But economics were not the reason the couple settled into the Lowcountry, Jeremy Read said.
“Charleston is not the cheapest place,” he said. “Charleston is less expensive than New York, but it’s not a bargain. If you really want to stretch your dollar, there are towns like Aiken. There are many, many neighborhoods in Charleston we won’t begin to look in for homes. We drive through and say, ‘Where is all this money coming from? Who are these people?”
Jeremy Read thinks the Charleston area better have a good plan as it braces for future growth.
“I know this city is sort of a nationwide model for urban planning, but the secret’s out. Retirees are going to come here, and this home office thing is pretty easy if you can pull it off with your employer.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail kdayton@
charlestonbusiness.com.
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