I would be researching every day from now until then.  You don't want to make a huge move and then regret it for any reason.

You want to use a realtor that works 100+ miles from where you want to live?  

No, I got her number from a friend who used her. I just called her to get information. I'm still looking. I've never bought a house so I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing or what I'd need. She gave new some helpful advice that I can use in my search.

Since you say you have never bought a house before, be very careful on any "advice" a realtor gives you. Yes there are good ones, but there's also a lot of bad ones out there too. There are a lot of legal/ethical/disclosure aspects and a realtor really only has one goal in mind, making a sale.

Tread carefully.

no kidding.  Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you take any legal or tax or finance advice from a realtor.   And especially don't take their advice on what you should pay for a property or how to negotiate.  

 also, the realtor association puts completely retarded PC rules on them that prevent them from giving you honest info about precisely the kind of stuff you would expect a realtor to know, like about the neighborhood.  so they're mostly worthless and exist primarily as gatekeepers to the MLS database.

also, don't sign a contract with any of them if you're looking to buy.   their stupid contracts are all benefits to protect them and none for you. (it's different if you're selling)
remember, they may have to use their contracts, but you do not.   i.e. you can make your own offer letter.  if you use theirs, you can strike out or modify any clause you don't like.

What types of questions should I be asking, what should I be looking for? To be honest, this is all very overwhelming. I'm looking online at property and houses strewn all over Tennessee. It's really hard to determine what are good areas to raise a family in. I've looked in Spencer, Sparta, McMinnville and a few others.

The best, and I mean the BEST way is to drive down here and visit these places for yourself. No one can tell you what it is YOU are looking for. A firsthand drive by is going to be your best friend.

Few years ago, two coworkers had to drive up to Indiana (I think), to work on a customer's plane that had developed a problem.  Small city with only one maintenance shop at the airport, and that shop's mechanic told the customer up front that the plane was too far outside his experience to feel comfortable working on it.

After finding the problem, they had to wait on parts, so they spent two or three days there.  Driving through the place, and eating at a diner a couple times, they learned more than enough about the place to know whether it was a decent place to move to (probably was, a few years earlier, but the locally economy had tanked and the city was heading downhill).

Nothing beats driving around the area and spending a little time in the local businesses.

Coming down and visiting is in my to-do list.

Take some advice from an older guy that has been around and owned several homes.  Rent for a while and see if you actually like the neighborhood/city you choose?  That way if you decide you don't, it's a hell of a lot easier to relocate than to try to sell your house, take a big loss in the process and buy another house.  You are NOT going to get a good feel for any place in the short time it sounds like you are going to invest in your trip down here.  You'd need at least a week just to look over any one prospecting city.  Don't rush a home purchase!  Plan on being in that house for at least 5 years if you want to sell it and not lose money.  If you have money to burn... well that's a different story.

That is very good advice. Follow it OP.

That's what I did.  I'm just under an hour south of Nashville, love it here.  The only place I'd consider moving to is the beach.

Chattanooga here, actually originally from NJ too.  Lived all over since I was mil, love TN though and the area, not sure if it was mentioned but also no state income taxes in TN, as mentioned ccw is easy, class fill out forms and done.  House is 15 minutes from downtown, 3400 sq foot for 250k, county taxes (about 1800 yr), just bought 15 acres for 42k.   Life is good.  Def extremely firearm friendly.

Stereotypical upper east coasters don't do well in the South.  Don't bitch about our bakeries, pizza (or Italian in general), or cheesesteaks.  We don't want anything from the part of the Country that you are fleeing...if we did, we'd live there.  East coasters make the mistake of thinking their values, ideas, and way of life are good...then they usually get reminded that the common denominator in what drew them to the South in the first place was an absence of yankees...like themselves.  

Seriously.  Other than that, welcome.  

Harsh. But, I haven't ever found a place up where I live that has good pizza, there are few bakeries that are any good either. Cheesesteaks are pretty good though.

About the only thing I'll miss is Taylor ham.

You're in luck, because Ham is a Tennessee specialty.

Then come on down.  

That's the plan.

My first experience with Tennessee was in 2007, I drove through the state and found it was both the most beautiful place i'd ever seen and the people had no clue how to drive on the freeway. I ended up moving to Tennessee in 2012, took a good job in Nashville, been here since. In the last 4 years I've seen a few parts of the state, and best I can tell you is that while I love Nashville I think the Knoxville area is amazing. Now lets be honest here, Tennessee has lots of Rednecks, you may consider taking that into account when you scout out where you want to move too. Don't get me wrong I find that the folks in the country out here are some of the best people on earth, but being from the north you may find a bit of "adjustment" needed for yourself and family, not to mention a slight distain in a small portion of the population who don't like Yankees. Don't let that stop you from moving to Tennessee though, its just a factor you need to consider.

Now to get back to the where, for suberb life I'd say you need to check out Farragut near Knoxville or Franklin south of Nashville, both areas have fantastic schools and great economies. Both Nashville and Knoxville have country areas around them that will allow for secluded country life where you can shoot on your land. Now I am only speaking of those two because I have not spent more time in Chattanooga, but I'm sure some guys on here can attest to how nice it is.

For shooting, your CHL out here isn't a big deal at all, minor hurdles, small fee and its done. Next up you'll like the gun culture out here, Beretta is opening a factory north east of Nashville and Barrett is down south near Franklin. Then you have plenty of first rate training schools out here and great gun stores. I know the guys who just opened a new one in Nashville called the Royal Range, its a converted movie theater where you can rent and shoot a M2 50 Cal .

Lastly worth note is the weather, winters aren't too bad (again...drivers), summers aren't too bad either, both are just a couple months of non-perfect weather. The spring and fall out here are great times though, so I'd plan on coming out here around mid October or late April. Don't forget to look at citydata.com to tell you more then you want to know about the area's your looking at.

Good luck and when you drop by let us know.

Franklin (Williamson county) is a nice area, but it's pricey.  I've heard that the property taxes on undeveloped acreage/farmland is a bit steep.

Whoever does the appraisals for the Nashville (Davidson county) tax office is delusional (and not in a good way).  There are still pockets of rural land in Davidson county, but land and property taxes tend to be much more reasonable in the neighboring counties to the north (Robertson) and west (Cheatham, which has earned a reputation of being very redneck).


Had to deposit a check, this morning, and went to the bank branch in Kroger.  Teller asked what I was carrying.  I replied "Huh?" and he pointed at the bulge under my shirt on my right hip.  "Cellphone and flashlight."  There wasn't a line behind me, and we ended up discussing preferences for carry guns.  I guess Bellevue hasn't gotten as bad as I thought it had (I can remember when pickups in Bellevue usually had rifle racks in the back window, and often had something in those racks).


Did Barrett move?  Last I heard, they were on the other side of Murfreesboro.

Check real tracs online for real estate.  My home is for sale there.  $700k.  Shoot, hunt, pee off the porch.  35 min to BNA.

Won't list a link here. Moderators freak out.  Go to real tracs.  Then Wilson County.  1221 Shop Springs Road.

That's WAAAAAYYY outside my budget. Nice place but too rich for my blood. I'm trying to stay within my means.

We've been looking in Franklin and there's a lot of houses in that area but like you said, they are kind of pricey. I'll look into Farragut though; haven't looked there yet.

If you are looking for acreage and also want to shoot on it, Farragut is probably not for you. Along with being pricey, shooting there is probably going to have your neighbors all in a twit.

You would be better off searching other areas of Knox county.

This is the exact reason why you need a Realtor that knows your chosen area  

I know where you don't live we are above 2500' and hubs stay locked for about 3 months in winter total...that seems to be the magic elevation number

So how much snow does Tennessee get a year? Can't be much.

last couple years we got at least 6 snows over 12" above 2500' I am talking Carter/Johnson Co..,
same time the flat lands of Bristol,Johnson City And Kingsport may only get 2 or 3 inches from those mountain storms

on Dec 27th 2015, it was 72* on the AppTrail and that was at about 3000' feet, it was weird to hike in shorts after Christmas,

Almanac is saying a mellow winter this year, which means rain and mud since we didn't get fog last month I drove in it most mornings going to work...so I think we might get slammed

Most of TN is very mild winters, that is one of the reasons this valley area was settled so long ago and was awesome farming and hunting grounds, the mountains protect most on TN, unless the storm gets stuck, like it did back in 95 or so

we had 113's on the streets battling the snow,rescuing people and helping power companies cut trees...long cold 2 weeks of easy money

Depends on what part of the state you live in.  Eastern TN in the Smokies gets more than middle and western TN.  We had about 3 inches last winter in Clarksville and that lasted a couple weeks. That was the most snow I've seen here in 5 years.  Like it was mentioned in another post, elevation is the key, above 2,500 ft gets more than closer to sea level.

Depends.  East TN gets more overall than west TN.  The bigger problem is ice/sleet/freezing rain, and a general lack of road equipment to handle it in the more rural areas.

Growing up in NJ I have no problem with snow/sleet/ice. I can't speak for anyone else though.

We've got an excess of people that have a talent for sliding into other cars when it snows, spinning sideways and blocking roads, putting their front end in a ditch and leaving the back end blocking a lane of traffic, sitting at the base of a hill with the pedal to the floor and the tires doing nothing but spinning, etc.

The challenge is figuring out how to avoid those people.

But do you have problems with hills?

No, why are hills a problem for people?

Gravity's a bitch

It's always dragging new down.

They'll cancel/close the schools for just a threat of snow around here.

Better stock up on bread, milk & TP.

Yeah, they do the same thing in Jersey now too. Last year they closed the schools due to rain. It's not like it was when I was a kid. Blizzard of 1996 they kept the schools open right up until the time the plows started getting stuck. After that they were closed for a week so people could dig out.

the counties are so big and varied in NE TN, if it snows/ices on Roan MTN all Carter counties schools close, elevation goes from 6,286 ft to 1,593 ft in Carter county, Johnson county is similar not as drastic though

Mountain roads + no guardrail + ice/sleet/snow/freezing rain + not plowed or salted = an adventure of the bad sort.

I can imagine that would get a bit sketchy.

That's why my winter speed is 25/30 mph, you have better chance of fresh snow stopping you from sliding off road, AND you crash softer

I always see multiple drivers that pass me and end up off the road, I "polite wave" as I drive by them

and since they did it on purpose due to stupidity...it's not like a passed an accident w/o helping

All I'm gonna say is that, if you move anywhere east of Cookeville, you should have at least 2 different routes home from where you are at the moment.  One flat and one fast.

Metro Nashville schools close for heat in August.  Morons wouldn't listen to the people that grew up here, and shoved the new schedule (starting school in the first week of August) down our throats.  Trying to explain reality to the mental midgets just got responses like "you know, there's this thing called air conditioning".

When the local news had video of a student being hauled off in an ambulance, after he passed out from the heat in a school cafeteria, they finally realized that us country hicks (natives) aren't as stupid as they thought we were, but instead of going back to starting classes around the end of August/beginning of September, they just introduced 'heat days'.  If the outside air temp goes above a certain point, school is cancelled.  Of course, it doesn't get that hot until later in the morning, and if they get enough time in class before letting the kids out, they get to count it as a full day for the schedule.  

They had initially tried to blame the problems on failing equipment, but the guy in charge of the air conditioning and heating for metro schools eventually got tired of being hounded by the news media and explained to them that nearly half of the school buildings had air conditioning systems that simply were not designed to operate when the outside air temp was above 95 degrees (an energy efficient system that metro started installing in schools in the 1970s).  In more recent years, schools had also had energy efficiency upgrades such as replacing the old windows that opened, with more efficient windows that could not be opened, so the buildings became energy efficient ovens, when the outside air temp went above 95 degrees (as it frequently does in Nashville, in August).


Then there was the year that Metro Nashville schools had a new administration brought in from southern California (Nashville liberals keep trying to educate us hicks by bringing enlightened people in from places like California).  All the surrounding counties were saying "ain't no fucking way we are going to even consider having school today", but the metro Nashville school administration was saying Davidson county roads were clear, so there was no reason to bother closing schools.  Buses unloaded at the schools, and left.  Maybe 30 minutes later, the administration went "OMGWTFBBQ!!! There's a blizzard! Send the kids home, NOW!".  The principal of my daughter's elementary school had sense enough to tell the bus drivers to forget about taking any kids home, since she was keeping them until their parents picked them up.  Most school principals didn't think that far ahead, and there were reports of students not getting home until after midnight, thanks to all the buses that got stranded on the roads with students on them.

I live in Maryville, about 20-30 minutes south of Knoxville. It's literally perfect here, and I think it would meet your criteria nicely.

If we get 3" of snow, all schools close and the city basically shuts down for the day. Getting snow is a newsworthy event that only happens a few times a year, at least around here. When I was in high school several years ago, we got about 18" of snow, and we were out of school for 9 days straight.

As for gun laws, I'm not aware of anything that is legal. HCPs are easy to get, NFA stuff is all g2g, and there aren't any restrictions on what you can own. Only thing that comes to mind is that you need an CHP to carry--no open or concealed carry without a permit. No knives are illegal to own or carry regardless of age, and anybody over 18 can carry any gun, open or concealed, loaded or unloaded in their car without a permit (ie, no transportation or trunk gun laws).

You don't have an accent, do you? Cause that will have to disappear fast.

I'm an angry guy from New Jersey. I don't hear an accent but I'm sure it's there.