Family of 4 Considering a Move to the Area (Knoxville, Johnson City: best city, violent crime)

[mrslu]

hello, we are looking at moving to the area for husband’s work (Kingsport). We have two children, upper elementary, but both homeschool. We would love to live close to daily conveniences (grocery stores, restaurants, some shopping), as well as any entertainment that is in the area (movie theaters, town square, shopping malls, etc) but have a small bit of land (one acre or so). We do enjoy things like theatre, museums, and such, but I know we will have to drive a little bit for those things (I’m assuming Knoxville?) Budget would be no more than $450,000. What specific areas would you suggest looking into?

[Ted Bear]

Come to the area. Tour Johnson City, Bristol and Kingsport--any realtor will drive you around and narrow things down, and then start to show you houses.


"Lots" are often bigger here. You are surrounded by rural to wilderness areas. Your $450 will buy you a very nice place.

[rccrain]

There exist several very good homeschool coops in the area.

The Barter Theater is excellent in Abingdon VA just north of Bristol. Kingsport Ballet is also very good and there are at least two Symphony Orchestras if you are interested. HandsOn Museum is an excellent option for students your age. Bays Mountain (observatory, ecology, and local plant and animal education activities) is also a good place to go a couple times a year.

Look at the following zip codes, listed in the order I see them best for your set of interests: 37615 37659 37663 37617 37686 37656 37692

I would also note that the area's premier hospital is now emphatically centered in Johnson City and most related medical services are likely to gravitate to JC. This combined with ETSU leads most of us to think that JC is likely on the rise and Bristol and Kingsport are in danger of becoming stagnate. Kingsport is industrial and Eastman Chemical centric. Bristol mainly has Bristol Motor Speedway, King University (small), and a decent downtown.

[setnick]

Your budget will buy you a very nice house and more than an acre of land, all in a good area if you play your cards right.

Good luck with your potential move and welcome to the Tri-Cities!

[Serious Conversation]

There are some choices to make. I'd go through threads on the first couple of pages on the Tri-Cities boards.

First, I'd pretty much rule Bristol out entirely. Getting to Kingsport from Johnson City is easy on I-26. A commute from most of Bristol would probably be longer.

Your budget should be good enough to buy you a nice home on an acre or two.

Many folks on this board, myself included, feel that Johnson City is the best city in the area to live in, for several reasons. ETSU provides more amenities and a sense of diversity than is common in towns of this size. Johnson City also has the most shopping in the area, with the area's only healthy indoor mall. It also has more upscale options in retail than the other cities. The best dining in the area, with a small handful of exceptions, is in Johnson City.

Johnson City also has a more diverse economy and less dependence on Eastman/heavy industry than Kingsport. Kingsport is pretty well tied to Eastman. Kingsport also has the infamous "smell" to deal with. Overall, Johnson City feels more upscale/diverse/modern while Kingsport feels far more working class/homogeneous/stuck in the past. Kingsport, with the exception of some wealthier neighborhoods, feels very working class/working poor.

Crime is in an issue in certain parts of Kingsport, though areas with $450k homes will be fine. Overall, Kingsport has a significantly higher rate of property and violent crime than Johnson City or Bristol.

The trade off will be the commute. I live on the south side of Johnson City, and work in Kingsport and Johnson City. It's about 35 minutes door to door, and 26 miles each way to my Kingsport office. I've also lived in Kingsport and commuted to Johnson City, and it's about the same.

The medical "issue" in Kingsport is pretty new, and you should be able to get a feel for it by Googling Ballad Health. You'll see plenty of very recent news articles. The long and short of it is Holston Valley (biggest Kingsport hospital) is losing its L1 trauma center status, being downgraded to L3. It's also losing the NICU. Some services are being shuffled around between hospitals. All told, I don't think this is going to have nearly the negative impact that the naysayers say it will, though there will probably be some net loss in services for Kingsport, and a net gain in Johnson City.

Kingsport does have an excellent park system. There's no other municipal park like Bays Mountain in the entire area. Kingsport's Green Belt is excellent for walking/running/biking. Warrior's Path State Park is pretty much adjacent to the city. Kingsport also has a very good YMCA.

I would take a tour of the area before making any decisions. It's not a huge area, but if you're coming from somewhere larger/nicer, I think Kingsport especially could be a culture shock. I'm from the area, but spent 2012-2016 in affluent suburbs in the Midwest, and there are a lot of things that were a part of my daily routine there that are simply not available here. Johnson City can offer a bit of sophistication and amenities Kingsport really doesn't.

[mrslu]

Thank you all for your responses.
Serious Conversation: Thank you for all the info... We are south of Nashville right now, and it sometimes takes my husband an hr to get to work, so doing Johnson City to Kingsport should be doable. We’ll definitely need to come check out the area more, but from your description and others, I think we’re definitely leaning toward Johnson City.
Thank you all! Looking forward to checking out the area!

[setnick]

As someone who has lived in Nashville and dealt with that traffic, the Kingsport and Johnson City commute on I-26 is a breeze with full speed on the interstate and very little traffic. It is a much nicer drive than those I had in Nashville daily

[AppalachianAngler]

Originally Posted by setnick

As someone who has lived in Nashville and dealt with that traffic, the Kingsport and Johnson City commute on I-26 is a breeze with full speed on the interstate and very little traffic. It is a much nicer drive than those I had in Nashville daily

This, absolutely. You will also get much more bang for your buck in the housing market. I guess this is obvious comparing a fairly major metro vs. a more micro area, but still should not be overlooked.

You will definitely want to live in Johnson City if you are used to Nashville amenities & shopping.

[Serious Conversation]

Originally Posted by setnick

As someone who has lived in Nashville and dealt with that traffic, the Kingsport and Johnson City commute on I-26 is a breeze with full speed on the interstate and very little traffic. It is a much nicer drive than those I had in Nashville daily

It's much better than a Nashville interstate, but it does bog down. My door to door from south side of JC to Stone Drive was 47 minutes today. There were slow downs at State of Franklin, Boone's Creek, and Gray exits, and all came to a complete stop. Today was worse than normal but there is usually one complete stoppage in either direction most days.

John B Dennis around Eastman also bogs down. In Kingsport in the evening, it can take as long for me to get from Stone Drive back onto I-26 as it does from I-26 back to north JC.

A lot of people in this area don't experience much traffic because they're living and working in the same city. My parents live a couple miles from Central High School and work in Bristol and near the airport. They aren't getting in the worst of the traffic like I am. If you're commuting between JC and Kingsport during standard business hours, yes, there is some traffic, and yes, it slows down quite a bit.

My advice to the OP - the zip codes rccrain mentioned are great choices. Gray, Boone's Creek, and even Hales will get you closer to Kingsport than JC proper, but in a much nicer environment than Kingsport. Gray is a quick shot down 26 outside of rush hour to JC.

Originally Posted by AppalachianAngler

This, absolutely. You will also get much more bang for your buck in the housing market. I guess this is obvious comparing a fairly major metro vs. a more micro area, but still should not be overlooked.

You will definitely want to live in Johnson City if you are used to Nashville amenities & shopping.

Keep in mind the OP is looking at fairly high end homes. One thing that I've noticed, especially in Johnson City, is that since it's kind of the hot market for the Tri-Cities and there aren't a lot of high end homes in the area to begin with, $400k doesn't stretch as far as you might think.

The good news is that if you buy a high end home in Washington County/JC, it will probably sell much easier than a similar house in Kingsport/Sullivan County. I had a relative with a high-end home he listed at $450k in a nice neighborhood outside of Kingsport, but zoned to county schools. It took him nine months and a cut to $405k just to get rid of it.

[Serious Conversation]

Originally Posted by mrslu

Thank you all for your responses.
Serious Conversation: Thank you for all the info... We are south of Nashville right now, and it sometimes takes my husband an hr to get to work, so doing Johnson City to Kingsport should be doable. We’ll definitely need to come check out the area more, but from your description and others, I think we’re definitely leaning toward Johnson City.
Thank you all! Looking forward to checking out the area!

Are you in Williamson County? If so, I think this area may be a bit of a shock to the system.

Williamson County is the most affluent county in the state. Kingsport is far from affluent. I used to live in an area very similar to Brentwood in Indiana, and even though I was raised here, there is still a lot I miss, and I'd consider the other areas I lived in to be better places to live overall. The only reason I came back is that a job offer came up here when I was likely about to be unemployed where I was.

Shopping like Costco, Macy's, Dillard's, Whole Foods, anything upscale really, you'll have to go to at least Knoxville if not Greenville, SC or Charlotte to find.

Personally, I drive a lot more here than I ever did around Indianapolis or Des Moines. It's fairly common here to live in Johnson City, work in Kingsport, and possibly go to Bristol to shop or catch a movie at The Pinnacle on the weekends. I had plenty of things "at my fingertips" in the other areas, where everything is much more spread out here. Also, if you do get bored and want to see something else, we're at least an hour (south side of JC to Asheville is about an hour if you hurry) from anywhere else of consequence. Knoxville is an hour and a half to two hours away. We're pretty isolated.

If the kids are involved in certain sports or activities, you might want to check and see if there is something comparable here.

Johnson City can provide some amenities, but it's not Franklin or Brentwood. I'd definitely give the area a visit and see if it's the right fit for your family.