The Truth About America's #1 Cities (Carmel & Fishers)

Carmel, Indiana and Fischers, Indiana were just ranked top two places to live in all of the country by US News. Today, we're going to take you through why they're the best to live in the country, but some serious drawbacks that this list might be missing. If you don't know us, we're root, a real estate team here in Indianapolis that cares deeply about this city. Today, we're giving you the local who's your take on the two best places to live in all of the country. Let's jump in. Max, you literally just moved to Caramel last month. What is your take on this ranking? My take is I feel it and I agree. Uh I do not live in Carmel. I live on the border of Caramel, but I get all the accessibility that Carmel offers and I get to just all the upside because I'm in the perfect spot. I'm right in between Indianapolis and Carmel. So, I can see the major differences of where money's at. And let me tell you, they've spent some government dollars up in Caramel to make it as amazing as it is. And I truly truly believe that is the best place to live in the country. Well, I love that you love Caramel, but it makes me sad. Just being honest. I have I have a different opinion. I'm an Indianapolis guy, right? Like I lived in Irvington, now I live in Broadripple. And what I've seen is Caramel and Fishers go up and to the right. More people, more money, more development. And I've seen like Broadripple, like my backyard, go down to the right basically like empty spots, like crumbling infrastructure. And I feel like it's in part due to the the success of Caramel. Like I hate to say it, like it's like a little give and take because if you look back at the history, it was like all the money in Indie was in Indie, right? That means all our roads, all our schools, all our parks [snorts] were funded by all this money. But then it's like, oh, we got to like protect our money and uh, you know, band together and like seclude ourselves in the suburbs. Mine Gesser was actually literally a suburb. It was outside of the limits of the city and they annexed it. And then they go to Meridian Hills and then they annex that. And then they go to Noro, right? And then finally Caramel. And now Caramel's like outside of the 465 loop. It's never going to be annexed by the city. That's never going to happen. Well, in fact, it has changed in that car and that Indianapolis has been taking over these suburbs. And Caramel's been taking over Indianapolis. And there actually is like a pressured uh place at at 96th Street where you do start into this Meridian Hills that is this area that you're talking about that's so precious. Why do you feel like money is just jumping straight over that area and getting poured into Carmel? Because I don't think Caramel's tilted or is affected by Indianapolis being Indianapolis at all. Yeah, I think it is because it's about the tax dollars and property taxes. And if you have all of the people with wealth who are like the leaders of industry living in Caramel, living in on Gist in Fisers, that that's potential energy for indie development that's vanishing. Yet these people owe the the marketplace that they're living to Indie. So it's almost like they're not paying their dues to the city that enabled them to exist. Like by definition, a suburb can't exist on its own. It's connected to the inner city at some level through the just economic activity that that city produced in the and the amenities of that city. And so I do not think Caramel would be number one without the success Indiana ha Indianapolis has had over the years. And so I just want to see some of that wealth shared is all where I'm coming from. Yeah. But just in a vacuum, wouldn't that mean that Indianapolis couldn't have the success that it's had without the people that live in Caramel? Correct. But it's about where the money is ultimately going. They made it into like this perfect utopia with like the palladium and the farmers market and ice and it's all beautiful, but it feels like artificial. like they're trying to keep bad things out and I'm in the city experiencing those bad things. So, of course, I'm not like, "Woohoo, go Caramel. Caramel's the best." Like, it's just a different perspective I have. Yeah. And I think that there's like LeBron hate for a reason, right? Like people don't like the best because they it like if you want a suburb and we've made the best suburb, well, then it should feel like a utopia. So, in Indianapolis, I should be waving the caramel flag like go Caramel. Well, if you're Is that your position? If you're a city guy, then be a city guy. And what you're experiencing is what city guys get. You're eating the dinner that you've ordered. True. So don't complain about how your steaks cooked. Yeah. I think I have a different perspective because I think Caramel does owe Indie a lot to a lot of success. And I'd like to see more of that value exchange. Like basically Caramelites stay in Caramel for everything. They eat, play, and then go to work, go home. But then where do they go when it's a Colts game or when they have the big promotion and go up to Staleless? They go down to Indie. So they just go to transact in indie and but don't ever leave the droppings of what allegiance basically to give credit to the fact that it owes its literally existence to the fact that it's a spin-off from Indianapolis. Caramel is a spin-off from Indianapolis. It didn't exist before Indie. Never would have, right? It follows the trajectory of the development along Meridian. Now Westfield's the new Caramel. I think your position makes total sense and it's where you live. like you you totally want Indianapolis to be honored in it. And I don't know if Carmel's totally bashing you all. So like let's zoom in and let's look at it. What was US today? What were the metrics they were looking at to even award the uh Carmelites number one on the rankings? The two stats that stood out to me that are a great juosition is the median household income versus the monthly rent. The median household income in Carmel is 145,000. people there are doing just fine, but the rent is only 1,400 on average. That's a lot of savings. They actually have an opportunity to live. The price to rent ratio, you know what stood out to me? The commute. It's only 21 minutes. And for me, that's why I moved where I did. My commute to get to the city was an hour and five. That's two hours in the car a day. That's 10 hours a week that I don't get with my son. I now I'm like right home. We can go do an activity in the evening. It's like I got a whole new life, a whole new lease on life. and I can still earn 145 grand and only pay 1,500 bucks to live. It kind of is a utopia. It is a little dreamland. Uh, one of the things on top of that was 138 roundabouts. What does that have? It's hard to even comprehend. It It's crazy. I I actually like it's like a seven wonders of the world. I [laughter] It maybe should be and I physically have gotten dizzy. There's no You can't drive without it. You can't drive without maps on. People will constantly have expletives towards the roundabouts because they're literally getting getting dizzy and car sick. But you don't stop driving. You don't stop driving. And the stop light stoplight comparison. It is easier to commute. It's easier to get places. It's better for your car. And you save gas. Literally, you save money by driving in Caramel. You want to know the biggest con in my opinion? Okay, fine. We got to stop talking about how cushy it is. What's the con? 5,300. That's their high school size. Wow. You want to make golf team better be the next Tiger Woods basketball. You need LeBron James. Olympians out of this school. You breed Olympians. Most of the swim team. I'm a swimmer. Past swimmer in the Olympics, the past Olympics, all from Carmel. We had we hosted the trials in Lucas Oil in a football stadium in Indianapolis. So Indianapolis is sick. They do cool things. I'll go down and check out the pool in Lucas Oil. And it was just constantly caramel, caramel, caramel, caramel. winning and going to the Olympics all bred from this 5,300 school. So, is that a pro or a con? I mean, I'm an athlete and I want to compete. Why would I go to some D like 51A school to just make the football team? Yeah, you're just playing for passion at that point. If you want to see your team in the state championship dominating everyone, go to Caramel. If you want to be on the field, don't go to Caramel because it's so competitive to even participate in certain extracurriculars. It's just a lot of people. There's a lot of controversy if they need to split the school district. Yeah, I think that I would go less about the sports teams and more about the class sizes. Like, how are they creating high educations and uh without fail, they are a four-star school consistently. So, they are breeding good educations with the 5300. I'm just saying from the opposite side. I do think that's wild, but we went to Avon. Come on now. It was 4,000 when I graduated. Yeah. It might have still been corn fields when you were there. Yeah. No, no, it was not. Not not not that early. All right, we got to stop ragging on Caramel here. Uh we're going to number two, which is another Indiana city. What's number two? Fishers. And when I was reviewing Fisers, a stat that jumped out to me is uh it looks like a baby caramel on the numbers. Like whenever you're looking at simply the numbers will pop them up on the screen. And it is an overflow of what Caramel's doing. They are taking it C andrlv. They're copying and pasting how they leverage TIFF money, how they leverage government money to just reign in all these people. There's 200,000 people living within 70 mi of each other. Mhm. What's unbelievable? And the crime's low. Yeah. I thought if we put all these people in one place would go up. If you look at the map on Google Maps, it's like a whole separate metropolis in Hamilton County. It's huge. It's its own city, Hamilton County. Like, and Fischers and Caramel are the anchor of that. The second like the just that right behind that that stood out to me was the fact that they're only 11 years old as a city. They became a city in 2015. Yeah. We're talking about new. My wife grew up there and she's like we're like driving down the road and it's like neighborhood and school and Chipotle and she's like, "Yeah, this didn't exist 10 years ago. A whole city basically didn't exist." Like the town has literally doubled overnight. And so I think I'll like I'll call it back and say, "Yeah, you're right. something happened in the Indianapolis waters to make the blueprint to the best communities possible cuz like dude there were four on the top 50. We haven't even talked about Noblesville or Greenwood. And people who hate on Greenwood in Indiana, get over yourself. It is not as dangerous as you make it out to be. There may be like sections to it. Go to Greenwood. I bought a Tesla for my GNC. Had to go up there, had dinner, and I was like, where am I? Because I never go to Greenwood because I've just heard that like the Greenwood Park Mall is scary. So I just like avoid it. I went up. I was like, "This is this feels like I'm in a suburb similar to what's on the north side." Oh, yeah. It's like a Fischer Jr. is Greenwood. Absolutely. And they're doing some stuff with Freedom Park. They have 16 pickle ball courts in a row in Greenwood. I don't even know. Nobody knows that. Nobody's talking about it cuz I don't literally talk to anyone from Greenwood because the whole southside's like cut off. Like it's like once you pass Lucas Oil, it's like you're in another city. It sometimes feels like whereas Ming from like near north side her hair to Ming Caster to Caramel there's like a direct exchange of businesses and and there's like a cut off cuz there's no interstate that you have to travel to go there. It's Yeah. It's just a whole different land down in the south, but they have something going for it. Yeah. And and it's it's uh much cheaper. So what's the problem with Fischers? Unlike Caramel that has like the Mona in Midtown flowing into the arts district, it Fischers just doesn't have it. They're trying. They got the Fisers District connected to the Fischers Event Center which is sick, but it's all car dependent. Like they're not even from the Fischers Event Center, which just hosted Blake Shelton, John Legend, and Turnpike Jupiters. You literally everyone takes the car and it's two minutes away and it's a onelane road and it's just traffic. You have lights, lights, traffic, traffic, traffic, traffic. They have not figured out how to escape the car congestion trap fissurers and it's it's leading to some downfalls and you have to get on flipping 69 to go anywhere and it sucks. Yeah, they've been doing construction what unfortun bridges because of how bad it was. They're building 14 new bridges. I don't even know what all they're bridging over, but it was that. So, they're trying. Yeah, we can go on a whole tangent about how much better it is whenever you sink the highway underground, but we don't have to go there. So, yeah. What's the resolve? What's the Nickel Plate Trail going to do? Yeah, Nickel Plate Trail is pretty awesome. Uh, it's like the Monon. It's like the Monon of Fisers, right? It's got like parks, massive parks, amphitheater, and then like businesses popping up, and it's supposed to connect all the way down to the Monon in the city. [clears throat] you like ride your bike to Broadle easily ride your bike to Caramel uh or Noblesville via everything that this trail system. So they they are putting in effort like kudos to Fischers for actively trying. It's just they've gotten so far in the development without you know enabling commuters and bikers that well let's start to work to tie this all together. What in the world have have either of these places missed? What is Caramel missing? What is Fischer's missing? maybe even mentioned Noblesville or Greenwood. What's something that these suburbs don't have that Indianapolis does that would convince you to move into one of them? Oh, I would definitely move to one of them. We have like we we actively thought talked about moving to Nobles. Noblesville is kind of like a more off the beaten path, right? A little more. It's like a county seat has like a courthouse. It's like the Danville of the North, right? And so I like that charming element to it. I would be okay if you said like Cicero is the Danville of the north. Feels a It's a little bigger. It's a little bigger. It's It's a little bigger. But I see where you're going. Yeah. You need less urban suburban vibe. Like you need some rural mixed in with your urban suburban. So you want all three. No, I think a village Tyler Land has all three. You can go hike off on the trail and then grab dinner easily accessible and then you go back to like a town square that feels old with law firms. Yeah. So Zensville literally where's Zville on the list? I mean it has it all. It has the rural I think it's just too expensive. The median home value is like 675,000. I think they cut it out because it has so pricey. Yeah. It has the perfect mix. That's And they do not build anything new. So, it's just like good luck trying to bring those prices down that they're never going to let that happen in Zensville. It is one of the most restrictive places to build anything basically. What's something someone needs to know or be cautioned of before moving to Caramel or Fisers? Yeah, Fisers. Be prepared. There's going to be traffic. There's going to be a lot of construction as they furiously try to catch up to Caramel. Uh, Caramel, be prepared for some massive event every weekend. Chris Kindle Mart, the Caramel Marathon, which is massive. Like just there's something happening downtown every weekend drawing in tourism. Caramel's like popping in its own tourism. So, it's like if you want to go to a farmers market and be literally toe-to-toe with a million people, I just went to the farmers market. I wanted to go back to Broadbable like immediately. It was just like too much. It literally was giving making me nervous just how many people were there. It's almost too good that everyone's there. Just being honest. There. Okay. Well, clearly there are reasons why they are number one and two that I was not giving credit to. What What's the verdict? Do you think they deserve the one and two spot? Bro, I moved there. I am I'm riding high on the wave and I didn't intentionally move there. I was going to try to move to Indianapolis. I will just throw that on there. When I saw how quick I could go north and get accessible to everything and yet still go into the heart of the city, it is it's hard to ignore just that convenience. Mhm. And the fact that I can also live near around 100,000 different people and feel like I'm still out in my rural little town in Danville. It is utopian. I'll say it. That's the vibe. Yeah. And if you're maybe we should be pumped that Indiana has utopian level places that literally have no reason not to live there, right? So for one little moment every year, we're going to be in the US news for something positive that isn't Gary, Indiana, that is Caramel, which may be just as negative. This is another Roots podcast. Thanks for watching. Like and subscribe. Peace.