Hey y’all,

I will be relocating to Nashville in the next few months to accept a job I’ve been pursuing for years. I might rent first, but I’m going to look at purchasing a home relatively quickly.

I have an almost two year old so school zone is important and am mainly considering suburbia so she can have a neighborhood to grow up in.

I need to be reasonably close (~30 minutes would be ideal) to Vanderbilt Medical, Centennial Medical, and Nashville Medical.

Where should I look for housing?

Any recommendations on gun shops, ranges/clubs, parks, and restaurants would be appreciated as well!  

Thanks in advance!

First thing to ask is, what’s your budget? That alone will most likely dictate where your address will be.

Yep.  Allowing for a 30 minute commute does open up some options with hitting 440 and then heading for either I-40 or I-65 to get farther away from downtown, but budget limitations might require something more than 30 minutes.

A week or so ago, I was killing some time with Zillow, and heading west on I-40 to the Old Hickory Blvd exit, then north to Old Charlotte Pike, then west on Old Charlotte Pike (narrow, two lane road), over a hill into Centenary and almost to where it heads up the hill to Sullivan's Ridge, puts you at a 1950s 2-BR/1-BA of around 1,000 square feet on a 1/3 acre lot, for just under $300K (if you don't end up in a bidding war with other buyers).

ETA:  Just looked again, and it's farther off of Old Charlotte than I had thought (mailbox is on the other side of Old Charlotte, from the house).

I guess it's 'out of the way' enough that they don't have buyers jumping on it.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7818-Old-Charlotte-Pike-Nashville-TN-37209/41138200_zpid/

Budget is $350-375k if I rent out my house in Florida long term. If I decide to sell it, $400-450k. leaning more toward renting it at the moment. Still have to meet with my realtor.

Really need a 3/2 minimum. Garage and fenced in backyard preferred.

I suspect you won't be buying inside Davidson county.

ETA:  3-BR/2-BA, in an area where you would be less likely to worry about whether or not it is safe for your kid to play outside, is probably going to be near the upper end of your (if you rent the FL house) budget, for something inside Davidson but out near the edge of the county.  Add the garage, and you are into your (sell the FL house) budget.  Fenced backyard can be something of a wildcard, depending on size, how level it is, etc.  For the last 10 years or so, the Davidson county real estate market has shifted toward anything more than a postage stamp lot being a luxury that comes at a premium.

Recommend Lebanon, in Wilson County.

As the others have said, the Nashville real estate market is and has been crazy. The budget you’re saying is iffy at best unless you end up in the hood. Couple that with eventual private school, you better be making some bank. You do NOT want your kid in the Davidson county public school system. Elementary school is not as pricey as middle and high school, but pricey enough.

Here's an example of how crazy the Davidson county real estate market has gotten.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/0-River-View-Dr-Nashville-TN-37209/2062755340_zpid/

Nearly 22 acres of relatively flat (mostly open field) land in Davison county, near the river, and the price is only six million.  With the investors/developers bulldozing entire blocks in existing subdivisions to redraw the lot lines and build new houses, you would think an open field in a location like this would have been snatched up, subdivided, and built on, long ago.

...until you look into the details of its past.

There is water on two sides of the property, with a third side having a row of houses that have been there for ages, and the river on the other side of those houses.  The road used to access the property, and those houses, runs across a creek just before getting to the southwest corner of the property.  In the spring, it is not strange to see the creek running across that road, cutting off access to the property and the row of houses along the river.  The fourth side borders a farm, that seemed to be having some work (culverts, roads, etc) done around late 2009/early 2010, to prepare it for subdividing and selling off lots.  With the May 2010 flood, that work stopped, and their plans apparently changed to the present use as an organic farm and event venue.

If the above doesn't make it obvious, the listed property is prone to flooding, so you might not be able to get a building permit (the houses along the river were built long before the local government started worrying so much about such things).  If you did get a building permit, you would have to live with the very real possibility of a heavy spring rain resulting in you being stuck at home for a while, and if you live there long enough, you could see your house flooded.

But I won't be shocked if they manage to sell it, even with the ridiculous pricing, since there are still people looking for opportunities to buy land, hold onto it for a while, then sell at a big profit, and some of them probably aren't doing as much research on properties as they should be doing.  The May 2010 flood demonstrated that quite well, although most of the people learning that lesson, were people that had bought houses in subdivisions and the person/company that hadn't done their research had already made their money and was long gone, leaving a bunch of people asking "who could have known that this area could flood?" (answer: every single person that lived near that area in the 1970s, when it was underwater several times).

ETA: Checking the Nashville parcel maps, the wooded area on the two sides that I thought had water frontage on that property, is owned by the neighboring marina.  The property in question is just a field that has no water frontage, but the aerial survey of the 2010 flood shows that the field was underwater.

Cool.  You will need a commuter car.

Thanks for the input!

Nashville medical, do you mean general? Is it a medical issue or work that keeps you close to those?

Yes, Nashville General. Work related, been on the clinical side of healthcare for nearly a decade but going into medical device industry.

If I had to guess, Dickson might fit from a price point, but I don't know schools and you are probably going to be farther out than a 30-minute commute.

For reference, I bought a home in 2015 for $505k, it's now considered a $1.1m home, as others have said, real estate in the Nashville area has really appreciated.

If you're willing to commute a little further then chapel hill area.  Very small town with good schools.

Cornersville might also bee a consideration and it's right on I65.

On the west side I'd look at Pegram, Kingston Springs, and Fairview. If you are willing to have a further drive definitely consider Dickson.

I live near the airport in Antioch within Davidson county. I've lived in this area for about 15 years. You may hear people give it a bad rap, but I love the area I am in. I have no issues. It really just depends on what neighborhood in Antioch you are in. There is crime all over the city. So don't be fooled by people telling you that there is crime in Antioch etc. It's everywhere. Personally, I've never had any issues, knock on wood. But… the schools in Antioch suck, so that would definitely affect you.  The house prices are within your budget. So, there is that. If you get closer to the city it gets stupid expensive. Maybe a condo or an apartment???

As far as gun ranges, 40 miles from me is STrategic Edge shooting range. It is a treasure. Up to 1200 yards long range with cams, pistol pits where you can practice everything. Only about $250 a year. Just an amazing range. No range officers. If you are looking just to practice, Nashville armory has a great indoor range. I think it's about 275 a year. But you can't draw from the holster etc.

Thanks everyone for the input. I signed the job offer yesterday and will be relocating in four months or so. I’m going to get in touch with my realtor here and one or two in Nashville after we get through Hurricane Ian and go from there.






I looked into Antioch some before. I’m going to have to investigate more. Strategic Edge looks awesome! I put my name on the waiting list. Hopefully the timing will work out and there will be opening by the time I’m living there!

I was on the waiting list for about a year and a half for Strategic Edge.  Of course we were in the salad days of ammo and stuff so might be a different ballgame these days.  Still a member but health and other things have really limited my ability to go turn money into noise.

Not for nothin' but on a whim, I just looked at Google Maps to see what the current commute time is from Nashville General to Antioch.  15 miles-ish...between 40 and 45 minutes.  

If I were you, I'd look west of the city for something like this, which has a current commute time of 25 minutes, and sits on a 1/3 acre:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/300-Eisenhower-Dr-Ashland-City-TN-37015/67097013_zpid/

Easy way to bypass that.  

@Merlin

Tell me more!

Take one of the SE Classes; see if Tony makes the same offer.

Will do, once I’m up there and situated!

Maybe the precision rifle course, I’ve wanted a Bergara HMR for a while anyway!

Talked to my relocation company assigned realtor yesterday…. How do y’all feel about Mount Juliet?

That's the course I took.  Tony taught it - I highly recommend the class and Tony.  Excellent instructor.

Donelson Pike exit is being redone at the airport. It will be a cluster fuck for a long time getting into Nashville from the east side.

Checked my email yesterday, and membership invitation was there!

Use GE's Timeline tool and go back to 5/2010; you'll see that property almost all flooded, just as you said.  A tiny bit in the center is dry, with some vehicles parked on it.

The Nashville parcel maps include the aerial survey that was done of the May 2010 flooding, as one of the 'base maps' for the map.  Clouds obscure the southern side of the property, but the rest is nothing but river water and some trees sticking up out of the water along the northern edge of the property.

https://maps.nashville.gov/ParcelViewer/

If the easement for a canal (mentioned in the real estate listing) exists, a person could dig the canal, piling the removed dirt and rock on the highest point on the property, then dig a small 'lagoon' that would be connected to the river by the canal, adding that dirt to the pile at the highest point on the property, and put a private dock in the lagoon (though from a practical view, the order should probably be dig the lagoon, then dig the canal, starting from the lagoon end, so dredging would only be needed at the end of the canal where it connects to the river).  Depending on the size of the canal and lagoon, that might be enough to raise a spot on the property high enough above the floodplain to get a building permit, similar to how the Opryland Park site (which had flooding issues in its early years of operation in the 1970s) was filled in with rock and dirt to get it high enough to get permits to build Opry Mills.

But that is a lot of expense to make the property useable for building a single house that will be isolated from the main road for short periods (which may be as long as a few days) during the spring rains.  Would make more sense to buy a cheap property for a project like that, not one that is priced at six million.

There's a larger property farther down River Rd, but it's on the 'hills and hollers' side of River Rd, not the bottomland side.  It's more reasonably priced and has an old cabin on it, but the description in the listing includes the warning "Do Not GO ON THE PROPERTY WITHOUT AN APPOINTMENT!  ONE HOUR  NOTICE NEEDED!!".  Yeah, not a good idea to just wander onto a property in that area unannounced and go poking around.  

In the last few weeks before my father's place was auctioned off (also on the 'hills and hollers' side) to liquidate the estate, I lost track of how many tire kickers showed up and drove around in the backyard to look the place over.  I was armed each time I approached them, but they never saw a gun.  Some were apologetic about getting caught trespassing, a few were complete assholes, but they all left.  We eventually solved the problem of them driving around in the backyard, by a neighbor parking one of his junk cars (an old Cadillac or Lincoln, I forget which) near the end of the driveway, leaving just enough room for someone to pull into the driveway and then back out to turn around and go back the way they came.  I didn't see any that cut through the front yard to get around the junk car, but I wasn't always around to watch for it.

Mount Juliet is solid, as is Spring Hill/Franklin.

I didn't grow up in suburbia, so it's a bit of a change.  My graduating class was like 120 kids... there's like 3000 kids in a school here in MJ.

School-wise, your higher income areas are just going to be better, so Franklin and part of Spring Hill are solid.  MJ is is good and likely to improve as more money moves in.  We are severely lacking in non-chain restaurants.  

I would definitely shop based on schools.  A nice house in a shitty school district is not going to work in the long run.


I'm got the perfect suburban dad setup.  3000 SF, newer development, near a school.  I just don't have, ya know, a wife and kids.  

@Amped - his wife is a realtor IIRC and they live near there.

(Full disclosure, my wife is too, but we don't normally work in Nashville proper, and would be worse than useless on helping you with schools)

Thanks @arowneragain

It looks like you have gotten a lot of the info needed. We almost rented in Antioch but after some advice from locals and some research we decided that wasn’t what we wanted.

For schools, my sons in a private style daycare which we love as long as we can afford it he will be in there (he’s 4). Daycare here is definitely more expensive then where we are from. We went from an at home amazing former teacher daycare with food was $210 a week to $1310 a month without food at this private school. Another reason we moved to sumner county was for the schools so once he transfers over he will be in a top 10 school district in the state.

If you need anything the TN family of members here have been absolutely amazing to all new people so you have a great network of people to help. With that said if you need a realtor my wife is one of the thousands here but specializes in the sumner county area and it’s neighboring counties.

I figure it’s time for an update.

My house in Florida was listed yesterday, full price offer within five hours or so.

I put in an offer for a house in Mount Juliet, owner counter offered with my target price and I accepted.

Pending inspections and closings, I will be a TN resident by Mid March at the latest!

Thank everyone for the help and I look forward to meeting some of y’all at Strategic Edge!

@Klyde96 - where in MJ?  Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or anything.

@coregon

PM sent

Welcome to Mount Juliet.


Did you end up north or south of Route 40?

Just South of 40, very close to Providence.

Not a bad spot, if it's one of the developments/neighborhoods I'm picturing, there's going to be a ton of kids around as your little one grows up.

Near you, look into Martin's BBQ, Margarita House (Mexican), The Goat (hipster), and Jonathan's for a chain-ish but consistent meal.  Thai Samurai has a surprisingly good sushi chef.  If you go in and the sushi chef on duty looks like a guy straight off a racist, WW2 propaganda poster... that's Felix, and he's good even according to California sushi snob standards.

Apologies, our only "steakhouse" option is Longhorn.  

good spot, good luck

Welcome to TN.

My wife works in MJ, but we don't live there.  It's a great area.  

One of the best pizza places in TN, Calabria, is in MJ.