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We visited NE Tennessee and met with our real estate agent. We stayed at a Air B &B that was really nice for a week. We found 4 houses that might fit our liking. We are moving here in the next 6-8 months. We like the last home in Greeneville but unfortunately it was out of our price range. Just wanted to see it.
We drove to those houses which were in Johnson City, Bristol, Limestone, Greeneville. And we drove all around must drove a couple hundred miles. Really got a good feel for the areas. Staying there a week we got a good fell how life is and we grocery shopped as well.
We both really like Greeneville and the nice town and the still open country feel. The only thing I didn't like but can deal with is the main strip with all the stores, restaurants etc. The roads where crowded. But you go off on a side road and you are back in country.
If you know of anything we should know about this town, good or bad we like to know.
Our agent said not a lot of homes for what we are looking for right now. Want over 5 acres cause we want to have a min farm with chickens and goats. Plus room for our greyhounds to run in a fence area and our other other doggies. A little building for our cats to live in and call there own with lots of windows.
The people we met and talked to in town and around were so friendly and we loved that. In the country areas, it's quiet not compared to where we live now.
I am retired and my wife is retiring in Oct and we have no children. So schools aren't a big deal, just don't want to live by a school.
Besides Zillow, Realtor.com and Redfin and other good places to search.
Lots of people are moving here from wealthy states wanting something similar. It will be a struggle.
Part of the "issue" is that the Limestone/Greeneville area along the Nolichucky River has the best farmland in the area. That area has always in been high demand for farmer types due to that.
There's also been very little building in this area from the mid 2000s until the last few years. The high interest rates and high prices are leading to a lack of inventory on the market, driving prices up even further.
Greeneville is improving, but somewhat isolated. You have essential retail - Walmart, home improvement stores, good variety of groceries, and some sit-down restaurants - but anything bigger than that - Sam's Club/Costco, Target, etc. - is going to largely be a drive back to Johnson City, Asheville, or Knoxville. All are 45-70 minutes away.
I'm from Greeneville, live outside the area but visit at least once a year.
Like SC said, a lot of folks not from Greeneville (or East TN for that matter) are moving to Greeneville. A lot of those people moving there want exactly what you want, and unless you are willing to spend major money, there isn't enough to go around. Many of those moving there--no offense--think they have a hidden gem and it will be dirt cheap. It's really not so easy and Greeneville has been "discovered" years ago, or at least since the COVID era. I'm pretty shocked at some of the real estate prices I see in Greeneville these days.
Most of the homes in Greeneville are split-levels built in the '60s and '70s. A lot of those neighborhoods (including mine) have gone downhill as the older generation has departed and the younger ones have not kept them up. The newer developments (mostly going Northeast towards Chuckey, Limestone & Johnson City) are there but pretty pricey for a small rural town.
The major pro to Greeneville is obvious: beautiful town with picturesque mountains to play in. The Appalachian Trail runs through the county so there is good hiking/camping/backpacking; the Nolichucky River runs through there as well. Some may disagree but I also think it's fairly close to other larger cities with more to do. Johnson City is roughly 30 minutes; Asheville & Knoxville about an hour; then you have Chattanooga, Nashville, Greenville, SC, Charlotte, and Atlanta not too far away. But Greeneville pull its weight for its population in my opinion. There is no shortage of grocery stores: 3 Food Citys, 2 Ingles, a Publix, Wal-Mart, Aldi, DG Market, and lots of discount ones. They have virtually every fast food imaginable. Plenty of home cooking restaurants. (The con to this is there are not many nicer, more upscale sit-down restaurants)
The biggest con for Greeneville is the healthcare. That is not unique to a small rural town, but it's pretty bad in Greeneville. Any serious is at least Johnson City or Knoxville, and maybe even ATL or Nashville if it's major. Despite some progress and more transplants moving to the area, Greeneville can be kind of standoffish to outsiders. Most of the locals' families have lived there for generations and the "good ole boy" network is definitely alive and well there. Finding a social life in Greeneville as an outsider is extremely tough. The more rural the more this is true. Also the more rural, the worse the property and drug crime (usually related to each other). Shopping at Wal-Mart can really be an eye opener about all the rough edges of Greene County.
With more and more people moving to Greeneville & Greene County, the traffic is getting worse. It's definitely nothing like a big city, but for a small town, it can be kind of congested. Lots of folks in Greeneville work in Johnson City, and most of the new development (housing & retail) are going out that way, so 11-E has a constant flow of traffic. It's nothing major, but if you are looking for it to be "quiet" in the City, it will not be. Also, plenty of residents with loud mufflers/modified cars or trucks, so you'll hear that fairly regularly.
If you are looking for a town in by beautiful mountains and good with keeping to and entertaining yourselves with outdoor activities, then it is hard to beat Greeneville.
Direct message me if you have any more specific questions.
Where we live now it's so bad. We live 1 mile from Baltimore. A lot of drugs, crime, murders come from folks coming in our county since we are so close to the city. You probably know about Baltimore and it's issues not only safety and crime but other issues, the worst schools in the country etc. Had to go in the city to get info on my retirement and it was so scary the neighborhoods we had to drive through. And the young kids on the corners trying to clean your windshields and if you don't pay them, they shoot you or beat you to death. A few people where killed and injured. Can't even go downtown to see a ball game without you getting harassed by the homeless or your car getting stolen or broken into. We also have pretty bad gangs a street over from where we live. Always hearing gun shots and cops sirens all the time. Then we also have our beltway near us and all you hear is traffic and tractor trailers down shifting all day and night. We are also on Shock Trama's helicopter route, so you hear the helicopters all the time going to the hospital. And on holidays, so many loud parties people have with extremely loud music and dj's screaming and these go til 1am. The cops don't do anything if you report it. They defunded the police, so we have fewer to respond. You think Memphis is bad, it doesn't even compare to Baltimore or Baltimore County.
This is one reason we like Greeneville, quiet and we drove around didn't see any of this like we see where we live day to day.
Don't really care about lots of things to do. We just wanna have our house, a mini farm with animals to take care of and enjoy life. We are older so we aren't partiers.
The Air B&B was on a road but it wasn't too loud with the cars that went down the road. Didn't bother us, sine we use to cars going up our street at home. Didn't see any walkers on the road. We have gang members and people we never see always walking down our street and we see cars just sitting there watching people's houses to see when they can break in. One reason we have to move.
We drove on what my wife and I call the strip in Greeneville. All those businesses and such and at first I thought it was a lot of traffic and real busy, but when we got home I said nope, we have more here then the strip.
The people we talked to where really nice. They did ask where we are from but they didn't seem to bother them. They didn't yell or get mad when we told them we wanted to move here. We are really nice people and friendly, so I guess they realized that when we talked with them.
We also like all the American Flags that we saw all over. Whee we live you don't see any of these because you be considered racist for having the American Flag on you lawn on on a hanging pole.
We have great Health Insurance from our govt job. They pay 90% of your health insurance for life. So, we should be good on that in Greeneville.
Thanks for your input. I really appreciate it.
Last edited by dad2paisley; 09-12-2023 at 11:26 AM..
While this area has almost no random violent crime and it's certainly nothing like like Baltimore, there is a good bit amount of domestic and drug-related crime, but most of that occurs behind closed doors. Property crime - breaking and entering, people stealing out of unlocked cars, stealing items that are not secured, etc. - can be an issue, especially in the rural areas.
With some exceptions, crime here is actually worse the more rural you go due to seemingly increased drug use and related behaviors.
Don't come expecting Mayberry.
It's not your insurance that's really the problem with the medical care - it's the hospitals. Regarding insurance, the local hospital system, Ballad Health, may itself accept your insurance, but the individual provider you end up seeing may not.
Greeneville used to have two hospitals - one on the east side and the other on the west side of town. The west hospital was repurposed to non-acute care functions - it might have closed completely by now. The east side became the city's only hospital, and most of the smaller hospitals throughout this area are losing various medical specialties, and all of that is being sent to Johnson City. That's causing more strain on an already overtaxed Johnson City Medical Center. The community hospitals like Laughlin in Greeneville are basically glorified urgent cares at this point. Send me a direct message if you want more information on this.
I agree with AppalachianAngler on many properties in this area not being kept up. I'm originally from here, but have lived in two Midwestern metros, spent about a year on business travel outside of Boston, and now split time between Bristol and Asheville. Again, with some exceptions in nicer neighborhoods, a lot of properties around here just aren't maintained very well.
Right now, prices are high, inventory is low, and the area is certainly not the value it was five or so years ago.
You may want to look west of Kingsport into Hawkins and Hancock counties. Those counties have more issues than Greene County, but property prices should be notably lower.
Thanks for the report on Greeneville, SC. We visited the area before COVID and I particularly liked Greeneville (TN). I thought we might eventually check it out in more depth for a possible move. At the time we were not looking for homes, although we did check a few out from the road when we were exploring. I found everyone to be friendly and helpful but can really understand the recent attitude (and not just there, but even here in VT) of locals being peeved at 'outsiders' coming in and purchasing properties at overinflated prices. In one resort-ish town nearby, all those buyers are now renting out their properties short term or Air B/n/B and it's created a controversy.
One side 'it's my property and I'll do what I want with it," and the local governing body deciding it needs to set a standard for the percentage of housing that can be STR. We (like everywhere I guess) have an affordable housing crisis here.
We liked Johnson City for shopping, etc, but the vibe in Knoxville was more what I would look for (didn't look much around K'ville though). Kingsport/Bristol? Nope...and somehow I have a real estate agent emailing me about available properties up there and I have to wonder why is everyone moving out of there.
Thanks for the report on Greeneville, SC. We visited the area before COVID and I particularly liked Greeneville (TN). I thought we might eventually check it out in more depth for a possible move. At the time we were not looking for homes, although we did check a few out from the road when we were exploring. I found everyone to be friendly and helpful but can really understand the recent attitude (and not just there, but even here in VT) of locals being peeved at 'outsiders' coming in and purchasing properties at overinflated prices. In one resort-ish town nearby, all those buyers are now renting out their properties short term or Air B/n/B and it's created a controversy.
One side 'it's my property and I'll do what I want with it," and the local governing body deciding it needs to set a standard for the percentage of housing that can be STR. We (like everywhere I guess) have an affordable housing crisis here.
We liked Johnson City for shopping, etc, but the vibe in Knoxville was more what I would look for (didn't look much around K'ville though). Kingsport/Bristol? Nope...and somehow I have a real estate agent emailing me about available properties up there and I have to wonder why is everyone moving out of there.
The big issue I see with Greeneville is a lack of employment and isolation, if you want to look at it that way. Medical is a problem, but that's a region-wide problem now.
Historically, Greeneville has had a higher unemployment rate than the surrounding bigger cities. That's not really that big of an issue now, but there aren't many professional jobs there. To some extent, the lack of well-paying professional work is an issue throughout all of upper east TN, but it does seem to be more of a problem. If you are moving in with money from elsewhere, as a lot of the new transplants are, work remotely, or are retired, it might not be a big concern. If you need a regular job, it's something to keep an eye on.
You're right - any sort of bigger shopping is going to be back to Johnson City, potentially Asheville or Knoxville. Greeneville is relatively close to all of them for a weekend trip, but it's probably not a trip you'd want to make after work. While most of this is area is "close-ish" to a lot of bigger destinations on the East Coast for vacations or a half day to a day's drive, there's actually not much other than Knoxville or Asheville that I'd want to drive to without a long weekend. That's one of my personal peeves - when I need or want "big city something," it's basically a half day's drive.
Johnson City itself is probably going to attract people who want more "city with some nearby rural options," while Greeneville/Greene County is likely the other way around.
I live in Bristol, and while I don't dislike it, it's just that much farther to Knoxville, Asheville, or any bigger market. Kingsport has been trending downward for years. I definitely think Johnson City has a brighter future, while Greeneville has appeal to a different market segment, and is at least closer to Knoxville and Asheville than much of the rest of the Tri-Cities area.
The big issue I see with Greeneville is a lack of employment and isolation, if you want to look at it that way. Medical is a problem, but that's a region-wide problem now.
Historically, Greeneville has had a higher unemployment rate than the surrounding bigger cities. That's not really that big of an issue now, but there aren't many professional jobs there. To some extent, the lack of well-paying professional work is an issue throughout all of upper east TN, but it does seem to be more of a problem. If you are moving in with money from elsewhere, as a lot of the new transplants are, work remotely, or are retired, it might not be a big concern. If you need a regular job, it's something to keep an eye on.
You're right - any sort of bigger shopping is going to be back to Johnson City, potentially Asheville or Knoxville. Greeneville is relatively close to all of them for a weekend trip, but it's probably not a trip you'd want to make after work. While most of this is area is "close-ish" to a lot of bigger destinations on the East Coast for vacations or a half day to a day's drive, there's actually not much other than Knoxville or Asheville that I'd want to drive to without a long weekend. That's one of my personal peeves - when I need or want "big city something," it's basically a half day's drive.
Johnson City itself is probably going to attract people who want more "city with some nearby rural options," while Greeneville/Greene County is likely the other way around.
I live in Bristol, and while I don't dislike it, it's just that much farther to Knoxville, Asheville, or any bigger market. Kingsport has been trending downward for years. I definitely think Johnson City has a brighter future, while Greeneville has appeal to a different market segment, and is at least closer to Knoxville and Asheville than much of the rest of the Tri-Cities area.
Thanks for the info.
We are both retirees and don't need a job. My wife will be starting her online dog training classes which her mentor trained her how to do these online training and it's so profitable and she can get clients all over the country.
We are homebodies. Like staying at home. I really don't like to drive esp here in Md where it is so bad.when I worked it use to take me 10 mins to get to my job but the last few years it took me over 1.5hours to get home and work was just 20 miles away from my home. And 3 miles from my house, almost home take over 10 mins just to go 3 miles. Traffic is horrendous. And if it rains it talkes almost 2hours to get home and if we get a good snow it could take 4-6 hrs. And that is just to go 20 miles. We had a bad snow, had 10in on the ground and we were aloud to leave early from work, took me 6 hrs to get home. And my wife took her about the same. The snow plows where out in force but, still so many people on the highways that they got stuck or the back ups where so long.
We want to get away from the big cities. My wife doesn't mind driving me and driving 30mins to go shopping or even 1 hour if we wanted to visit Nashville et, but probably not wanting go Nashville, Knoxville etc.
Here where we live shopping, restaurants are about 35-40mins away so that won't be an issue. When we where down in July visiting all the different areas, the traffic for us, maybe for you it's a lot of traffic, but for us it was nothing. And your traffic lights are so much quicker, ours traffic lights are at least 5 mins long. That's why there is so much traffic back ups.
Last edited by dad2paisley; 09-15-2023 at 09:47 AM..
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