Nice week in Sevierville Tn

[brighteyes818]

Originally Posted by MrsMopar

I'm glad the OP enjoyed the visit to the area. Yes, it has it's ups and downs.

We moved here 4 years ago. My inlaws have lived in Sevierville for 20 years. We used to come visit, sometimes 4 or 5 times a year, and decided we loved it so much we wanted to live here. Sure, it was hard to do but the city we moved from in Ohio was slowly dying. GM closed, manufacturing jobs moved to other states, downtown just slowly started to become a ghost town. No exaggeration, the house we owned went down in value by $20,000 due the slide in the economy. The county just up and reappraised houses and that's what we ended up with. That was when we decided we had to get out and start new.

My husband had a job lined up, I did not. We rented a house for a year and I was able to find a job in Knoxville. We were currently living in north Sevier County and wanted to stay. We felt it was halfway to Knoxville and halfway to Gatlinburg. It was a great decision.

While I realize that it is frustrating with tourists in the area, I appreciate them. My husband and I are social people, we love to go out and meet people as well as hang with the locals we've met. Yes traffic can be a nightmare and the spring rod run is nothing like the late summer one. The summer one will be double the traffic and tourists. Tourists think they can GPS their way around, using our back roads and clogging up traffic, but they are what is supporting our area. While I see the point about taxes on food and necessities can be an issue, it isn't for me because of what I used to deal with in Ohio. We paid federal, state, county and city taxes out of our checks. We paid county and city taxes on our home. Our tax bill was $600 a quarter. Now it's $600 for the year. The only taxes we pay out of our paychecks is the federal tax. I cannot, nor will I, complain about that.

As far as housing costs go, I disagree. We looked for a house for well over 3 years. We just closed on ours in January. We were renting the entire time. The house we bought here would be $60,000 to $70,000 more in Ohio...with all the taxes as well. I'm sorry but it's alot cheaper here. There are houses out there that are very reasonable, they just don't last long. Realtors here work hard for you, well if you have a good one....and if they know what they are doing they will tell you that you have to jump on a good house when you find one.

I am willing to pay the extra at the grocery or retail stores to offset the state, county and city taxes that tourism pays for. And traffic can be a real pain, yes that is true, but there are ways around it. And there are jobs out there, other than minimum wage jobs. They are far and few between, that is true, but they are there. I guess the positive I see in that is if I lost my job, or my husband lost his, we could work two jobs to continue to support ourselves, even if it was minimum wage. Someone is always hiring in Sevierville/PF/Gatlinburg during tourist season.

We chose this area for many reasons. I do not regret our decision one bit. It has been difficult at times but my father always said "nothing good comes easy". We love it here and won't be going anytime soon, that's for sure!

Amen,, plus I already have traffic,, if it snows,, there's traffic everywhere,, the tractors roll and clog up the highways and we don't call in because it snows,,the mentality is you live here, you should have a vechile that can get you through the snow and you better show up to work... although this year we were really lucky... last year 92 inches..

[MrsMopar]

Originally Posted by brighteyes818

Amen,, plus I already have traffic,, if it snows,, there's traffic everywhere,, the tractors roll and clog up the highways and we don't call in because it snows,,the mentality is you live here, you should have a vechile that can get you through the snow and you better show up to work... although this year we were really lucky... last year 92 inches..

Yikes! You are so right about snow travel in states that get it frequently! You were expected to get to work no matter if it was safe or not!

Last year when we had the ice storm here my boss called me and said "if it is not safe, do not come in". I was like huh?? She said for me to only travel if it was safe, that was the policy. I couldn't believe it! I couldn't get out of the driveway, it was a twisty, hilly curve and even though it was gravel it was dangerous to even walk on. Around 10am, when the sun peeked through the clouds, it began to melt and we could safely leave. When I did arrive at work there were still many who weren't in yet, and they lived in a more suburban area of Knox County. It was just refreshing for a change, that people cared for your safety more than clocking in.

Traffic is traffic. I mean drive through Atlanta at 5pm and you know what I mean. The traffic here, in northern Sevier County, is worse on Friday and Sunday. Travel down to PF or G'burg and yes, it's there. But like I said there are ways around it. Yes it takes a bit more time but I feel the benefit of the tourists here outweighs the trouble.

And PS. I do NOT miss the snow.