The empty retirement dream houses I was referring to were on the market long before 2008 - my dad passed in 2000. The experiences I had driving around looking at big empty dream houses were in the 90s.

By "race to the bottom", I mean that eastern NC by and large had abandoned the effort to build a skilled educated work force. It seems to be a spiral - "reduce the cost of doing business" with big tax incentives, lax environmental regulation (hog waste lagoons the size of lakes, dump whatever you want in the water), and very low wages. The tax incentives are paid for by cutting spending on education, which means a less skilled work force, so you have to offer bigger incentives, even more lax regulation.

As a retiree, why do you care?

When you 1st move to a town where the only non-government jobs in town pay minimum wage, it looks great. The services you buy can be very cheap. After a while, you begin to realize that when the best jobs in town pay minimum wage, anyone with the skills and motivation t make more than minimum wage moves to a place where there are non-minimum wage jobs.

Since Wilmington has UNC-W, you may be somewhat insulated from that effect. College towns have disproportinately large numbers of skilled, motivated workers who are willing to work for minimum wage - at least during the vacation season.

YMMV