From Philly to Chattanooga (A Good Move?) (East Brainerd, Hickory Valley: Home Depot, magnet school)

[beachbyrd]

I'll do my best here:

1) Median home price varies by sources, but it does seem to be be below $150,000. We have been actively househunting for a home that will accomodate my husband, daughter, future kid(s), and my in-laws. We have found many possibilities in the $150,000-$190,000 range, though some need updating quite a bit. We have been able to find 4/3's with 1/1 downstairs in the walkout basement areas and 3/2 upstairs, 2 car garage, 1/3+ acre, CHA, fireplace, 2200-3000 sqft. and nice neighborhood. If you are able to go in the $200,000 for the same size house, you can have a completely updated home or maybe new construction. We actually prefer a house that is not new construction, so our range is working for us.

2) As has been said many times when this question is asked, the qualitiy of schools are directly related to the socioeconomic "status" of the area. The best schools seem to be in the nicer areas. Areas that have consistently been mentioned with good schools are: Signal Mountain, parts of E. Barinerd, Ooltewah, North Hixson (County, not city), Soddy Daisy, the are zoned for Normal Park Elementary in N. Chattanooga, and I know I am missing some areas. There are many schools in other areas that do not do very well in student performance and state testing. I have heard the schools over the border in Georgia are good...Can anyone confirm that?

3) Sounds like taxes will be a pleasant surprise for you. It depends on where you live, but if you live in the county, where you don't pay city taxes for your home, the taxes are very reasonable, but even if you live where you pay city and county taxes you may pay $2,000 a year on a $175,000 house. There are no state or local income taxes, but the sales tax is pretty high at 9.25%. Food is taxed here at, I believe, at 8.25%.

Insurance is very low, usually on the same priced house as above, you are talking around $600 a year and we saved a lot of money on auto insurance when we moved here, probably $1,500/yr. Utilities seem to cost a great deal less here for us too.

Hopefully, hen you come you can really check out all areas, because there are really places here in Chattanooga for everyone. We have many urban and susburban areas that are worth checking out. Best to you with your search.

[Bluebird9872]

beachbryd....you did pretty good! I've been reading the posts here now for about a month and I learned some new stuff from this one.

[Leavingphilly2009]

A great job, loading with nothing but useful information. To tell you the truth Chatt was our third, no distance third choice to move to but after reading what beachbyrd wrote it's was a good sell.

Thanks

[shinestx]

beachbyrd's info is quite useful. I know of Chattanooga because it's in my territory and I sometimes office there. I must say it has a very nice feel for a smaller city, and the natural beauty is hard to beat. There's a big "branch" campus of the UT system downtown and very good medical facilities (3 regional medical centers downtown) as well as a lot of young adults. Plus, Chattanooga has landed several growing manufacturing expansions (Alstom and Brach to name two) in the last year. And it's in the running for the new VW assembly plant. As an accountant, you should check in to DeCosimo LLP and CBL as possible employers. I know accountants at both firms, and they're large-midsize (make sense) companies. Also, US Xpress and Covenant trucking are based there too. There are also Unum and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which are $10billion and $3billion corporations respectively. Good luck, it seems like a very nice city.

[LauraC]

Originally Posted by Leavingphilly2009

Coming down for a visit in late June, early July. Were trying to set up some arrangements with some realitors now, but we just wantee to get a feel of the surrounding area first. Here are some more question that I have if someone can be kind enough to answer.

What are median prices for real estate?
What are the schools like?
Taxes, how bad is it, although I do think living in philly is the worse. Not only are we stuck with state taxes, we have to pay city wages taxes also.

Just some simple questions.

Go to Google and type in City Compare as your search terms. Click on the first site that comes up. I can't give you a link because it's a City Data competitor. When the page comes up, type in Philadelphia, PA in the first box and Chattanooga, TN in the second box and then click on the Compare button. After the People side-by-side data comes up, look at the column on the left. You can compare the two places on several things like Cost of Living, the economy, crime, health, climate, etc..

I'd actually tell you what the comparison is but in case you decide against Chattanooga, you'll know how to do it yourself with some other town/city you might want to investigate.

[chattyman]

Chattanooga was just picked as the 3rd best city to move to by Relocate-America.com. The two cities above it are much bigger, with NBA teams. Here is the article posted on Yahoo: Charlotte-Named-Best-Place-to-Live: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

We love it here. Downtown is awesome with all the bridges and mountains surrounding it. I suggest coming to visit for a few days and see what you think. Make sure to check out Signal Mountain town if you like small towns. Its just 15 minutes from down town. Chatty is the best kept secret around.

Here's more detail about Chatty from Relocate-America.com: Chattanooga, Tennessee Real Estate, Chattanooga Relocation - RelocateAmerica (http://www.relocateamerica.com/tennessee/cities/chattanooga - broken link)

[tnsoftailrider]

Dear Philly
I think it would be a good move. I have lived here all my life and I can't think of any place I would rather live. But, understand that even though Chattanooga may not be as large as Philly we still have our problems. First, for the bad news. Some of the inner city schools have a "somewhat shadowy" reputation. Yet a couple have a national reputation for excellence. Though the local elected leaders and law enforcement have never like to use the word "gang" they do exist. But I word not say it is a big problem.
Our school system seems to always be in the headlines with someone complaining about how bad they seem to be. Yet, I have had two daughters, graduate from a Hamilton County school, both with academic scholarships, one was a "Brock Honors Scholarship" to UT Chattanooga, she now has her Masters, and the other is a senior at UTC.
The good school news is Hamilton County has some really good schools. CSAS (Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences) is a unique Paidea concept school. It is K-12, 50/50 boy/girl, 60/40 white/minority, 75 to 100 students per grade, didactic, Socratic, and seminar method of learning. Parents have to volunteer several hours per year at the school or you are out. But it is so popular, parents camp out for over a week on the soccer field to get their application in first. Since 1995, over 95% of graduating seniors have been accepted to college with between 3 and 6 million in scholarships. My daughters went to CSAS. Also, very good are Soddy Daisy schools and the Ooltewah schools. The Signal Mountain community will have a new middle school this fall and their first ever high school. If you want to spend a lot of money then Baylor, McCallie, and Girls Prep, are great private college prep schools with Harvard like tuiton (I'm not kidding). Georgia schools are very good too. But GA has a state income tax, TN does not. TN does have a higher sales tax, 9.25% in the Chattanooga area; on everything you buy, but it is deductible on your Federal Tax. GA's sales tax is almost as high, but no tax on food.
About the topography. Chattanooga sits at the base of Walden Ridge on the East side of the Cumberland Plateau or the west side of the Great TN Valley. the TN River flows through downtown. Walden Ridge runs from Signal Point in Chattanooga NE to almost VA. It is generally called "blank", insert the name of the community at the base of the ridge, Mountain, with a couple of exceptions. Signal, Falling Water, Mowbray, Daisy, Soddy, Flattop, Bakewell, you get the picture. I worked on a bridge in PA, on the PA Turnpike called, Canoe Creek, between Philly and Wilkes-Barre three years ago. The area there looks a lot like Chattanooga.
It takes about two hours to drive to Atlanta, Knoxville, Nashville, Huntsville or Birmingham.
If you like the outdoors WOW!! We have it all. Raft on the Ocoee, 1998 Olympics, handglide off Lookout Mountain, water sports in the TN river, almost 700 mile long, Trout fish the mountain streams, hike the Cumberland Trail, Chattanooga to KY, visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited Park in the US watch a MLB AA game (Lookouts) and last but not least if you like to ride a motorcycle, like me, you can ride the local mountain roads or visit the Cherohala Skyway, and the World Famous (number 1 motorcycle/sportscar road in the US, maybe the entire world), "Tail of the Dragon" US 129. Just 318 curves in 11 miles. It is truely unbelieveable.
Traffic from the Ooltewah area. Ooltewah, is on the I-75 corridor, towards Knoxville 15 miles from downtown. It boosts a huge number of subdivisions. So, every morning and evening the commute is awlful by our standards. Homes range from old homestead farms to very expensive houses (Peyton Manning has a house there). Soddy Daisy ( I know, it is a strange name, but it has a history), is 20 mile N. of Chattanooga on the US-27 corridor, a highway that is built like an interstate, it just doesn't have the traffic. Besides, in Soddy Daisy you can live on the TN river, expensive, or on the mountain also expensive. But wherever you choose, remember 300K buys A LOT of house here; think brick, 4/br, 3.5ba, 3000ft2 w/ community pool.
Plan a visit. You can drive here in a day. Stay downtown, you can use the FREE electric shuttles that run from the South side (Chattanooga Choo Choo Holiday Inn) to the TN Aquarium (world's largest fresh water aquarium) on the riverfront to get around. Visit Rock City and Ruby Falls and ride the Incline Railway (world's steepest, 70% grade). You start out leaning back in your seat and you are looking out the glass roof by the time you get to the top.
One final thing, we native southerner refer to northerners as yankees, unless you come down and stay more than two weeks. Then you will be know as damned yankees. If you can live with that, then come on down. We'll leave the light on for ya.

[Grizzlybear34]

Originally Posted by Leavingphilly2009

A great job, loading with nothing but useful information. To tell you the truth Chatt was our third, no distance third choice to move to but after reading what beachbyrd wrote it's was a good sell.

Thanks

LP2009 - And to make it so you are never homesick for Philly, Chattanooga even has a Broad Street, the main drag going into downtown! Enjoy!

[dac11]

[SIZE=3]Signal Mtn. is a small town that is about a 15 min. drive from Chattanooga. There are plenty of outdoor activities on Signal Mtn. You should checkout Walden Farms. I think if you search Walden Farmstn you will find it. They have large lots about 10 to 25 acres and they are priced better than everything else around. Their website is www.waldenfarmstn.com
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[clavoie1226]

exspect a culture shock if you have children,mine did ,cant tell you about property tax cause i rent out in the country.if your gonna move get the job first and see what they pay some jobs pay good others dont.