Knoxville/Madison/Lexington (Murfreesboro, Oak Ridge, Maryville: for sale, real estate, apartment)

[xtrafast]

Hi. New to the forums here, but here for the main reason of researching different information about places for me and my wife to move. So far, we've been strongly leaning towards a move to Knoxville, a big part due to the proximity to the Smokey Mountains and all of the outdoor activities that would be within an hours drive from Knoxville.

I've been doing my preliminary job searches, and today was made aware of a job opening I may be offered in Madison. I have to say me and my wife were not at all leaning towards Alabama as a place to live, but as I research the Madison/Athens area, it seems like quiet a nice place. A few questions:

If we want a house to lease or buy with a large back yard for our dog and us to enjoy, is this something we can find in the Knoxville area with relative ease? Or would we find ourselves moving outside of the city some to find this? Close towns are okay, seems Maryville and maybe some others are close enough for an easy commute compared to what I deal with in the Dallas area.

Traffic: We live in Plano, the north suburb of Dallas and traffic really stinks here and has progressively gotten 10 times worse in 3 years it seems. What is traffic like in the Knoxville area?

Weather: We are very tired of the long/hot/dry summers here. I know its a drought and we are drier than usual, but we are tired of it still being 90 at midnight in August. What are the seasons like in Madison? I grew up in south Mississippi and wondered if the humidity was slightly lower the further north you go or is it fairly similar and how are the summer nights? We can handle a little hot daytime weather, but when there is no real break from it for a solid month, night or day, it gets really old.

Outdoors: Another attraction of Knoxville to us is the apparently abundant outdoor activities that would be available. We have a dog who loves the outdoors and are sick of having her trapped in an apartment here. We mostly expect to be walking, hiking and canoeing with Nikki (our dog), and maybe some trail running and biking for me and my wife. Is Knoxville really solid for outdoor lovers? Not just looking for one or two great places to go outdoors, but a wide variety is what we hope to find.

Elevation: Texas is fairly flat and boring to us with not many trees in our area, mainly because they seem to clear cut every single new area they develop, so it takes 10-20 years for big trees to grow up again. How is Knoxville in terms of trees, hills, or even mountain type terrain (smokey mountain type).

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I know its long, lol. But any input would be greatly appreciated!

PS: YES! This post a cut and paste of the ones in the Alabama and Kentucky forums since the 3 cities me and my wife are looking into are in 3 different states.

[insanesmooch]

Well, I know about Knoxville and I know a little about Madison/Athens. Actually, more about Athens/Huntsville (though I think the road we takes passes through Madison).
From Murfreesboro, we used to go to Huntsville all the time. One summer we were there almost every week. I like the area pretty well. But we always joke about how no matter where we went, we passed 'the projects'. Madison seems to be the better part of town, though we never explored it too much. And from what I hear, AL is terrible on taxes. They have a state income tax yet the sales tax was almost as much as TN. I used go in Jan. to hit the 50% and 75% sales in some stores to get my Christmas shopping done really early. I never saved much tax wise. Even one time when I bought some Chocolate milk, I was surprised that tax on it was something like 6%.

Now to Knoxville. Yes, you can find houses there with back yards for dogs. Though most newer homes that are in subdivisions will not really have much of a yard. If you either look for something out side a subdivision or something a little older, you can find a yard. Like my aunt just sold her home in Knoxville. It had about 4 acres, already fenced in for dogs, 3br/2ba, I'm not sure of the sq ft, but it was spacious. The home was around 10 years old (they had it built). It went for somewhere between 200k and 250k. About 10 miles or less to downtown and it was in the county.
Maryville is about a 20 minutes commute, give or take a little depending on where exactly point A to point B is.
Traffic in Knoxville is getting bad. I'd say it is probably not as bad as a bigger city like Dallas though. One of the worst parts is the construction. Rush hour is the worst time of course, but even then it doesn't take that long to get places. I've never had to spend an hour trying to get anywhere. When my mom goes through West Knoxville traffic at rush hour, it takes about 30 minutes or less to get from South Knoxville to West and vise versa. Without as much traffic, it takes about 20 minutes. Now, UT football traffic is another story. Just stay off the roads before and especially after the game.
Weather. Well, AL is a little warmer than Knoxville. Not a huge difference though. I'm hot natured and hate when it even hits mid 70's, so you may want someone else to chime in on that one.
There are quite a few places to go for outdoor activities around Knoxville and within an hour or so drive. Obviously, there are the Smokies. You can go hiking, swimming, and I suppose canoeing in some of the water. I know people like to intertube up there alot. Down I-75 you have the Cherokee National Forest (or it extends up in the Tri-cities, though it will take 2 hours to get there). Maryville has a green way to walk. There are lots of parks through out Knoxville and surrounding areas. There are lakes for swimming, boating, ect... Knoxville also has a dog park if you want your dog to go meet some friends.
Knoxville is a mix of hilly and flat and has lots of trees. Of course, there are lots of trees being cleared for the new houses and shopping centers, but there are still lots of trees. There are some places there with kind of steep hills, but the elevation in Knoxville is not like in the Smokies.

Hope that helps answer some of your questions.

[jmarkey]

Go to the Knoxville Sentinel online. Check out their classified real estate listings. They're extensive and cover the areas around Knoxville as well.

You should have no trouble finding a home with a decent sized lot. This was one of our main concerns too, as we have three dogs. We're 15-20 minutes outside the city. We have two acres, about one clear and one wooded, fenced in backyard and no visible neighbors. (There are two other houses on our road, but you can't see them until the leaves fall.)

The woods, hills, mountains, lakes and rivers around the Oak Ridge area are beautiful. We've driven down through the Maryville area and it's also very pretty.

Do some Googling and you shouldn't have any problems finding real estate and getting a feel for the area.

Good luck!

[marysally]

I have to chime in here with a correction to the statement about taxes being high in Al. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes there is a state income tax but it is low and many types of income are exempted from it. Sales tax is 8% in Madison whereas it was 8.25% in Houston. The big difference is that property taxes are very low. Coming from Tx I'm sure you are aware of how high property taxes are there. My 2006 property tax bill for a 2000sq ft house that would sell for ~200K is $707. In contrast my 1800sq ft house valued at 80K in 1998 was taxed at over $3200. Homeowners and auto insurance are also much less than in Houston.

[xtrafast]

Lots of good info so far. Thanks, and any other input is greatly appreciated.

[countrygirl44]

Originally Posted by xtrafast

Hi. New to the forums here, but here for the main reason of researching different information about places for me and my wife to move. So far, we've been strongly leaning towards a move to Knoxville, a big part due to the proximity to the Smokey Mountains and all of the outdoor activities that would be within an hours drive from Knoxville.

I've been doing my preliminary job searches, and today was made aware of a job opening I may be offered in Madison. I have to say me and my wife were not at all leaning towards Alabama as a place to live, but as I research the Madison/Athens area, it seems like quiet a nice place. A few questions:

If we want a house to lease or buy with a large back yard for our dog and us to enjoy, is this something we can find in the Knoxville area with relative ease? Or would we find ourselves moving outside of the city some to find this? Close towns are okay, seems Maryville and maybe some others are close enough for an easy commute compared to what I deal with in the Dallas area.

Traffic: We live in Plano, the north suburb of Dallas and traffic really stinks here and has progressively gotten 10 times worse in 3 years it seems. What is traffic like in the Knoxville area?

Weather: We are very tired of the long/hot/dry summers here. I know its a drought and we are drier than usual, but we are tired of it still being 90 at midnight in August. What are the seasons like in Madison? I grew up in south Mississippi and wondered if the humidity was slightly lower the further north you go or is it fairly similar and how are the summer nights? We can handle a little hot daytime weather, but when there is no real break from it for a solid month, night or day, it gets really old.

Outdoors: Another attraction of Knoxville to us is the apparently abundant outdoor activities that would be available. We have a dog who loves the outdoors and are sick of having her trapped in an apartment here. We mostly expect to be walking, hiking and canoeing with Nikki (our dog), and maybe some trail running and biking for me and my wife. Is Knoxville really solid for outdoor lovers? Not just looking for one or two great places to go outdoors, but a wide variety is what we hope to find.

Elevation: Texas is fairly flat and boring to us with not many trees in our area, mainly because they seem to clear cut every single new area they develop, so it takes 10-20 years for big trees to grow up again. How is Knoxville in terms of trees, hills, or even mountain type terrain (smokey mountain type).

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I know its long, lol. But any input would be greatly appreciated!

PS: YES! This post a cut and paste of the ones in the Alabama and Kentucky forums since the 3 cities me and my wife are looking into are in 3 different states.

I lived in Knoxville all my life until last year. It is a wonderful place. I lived in a home that was 600' off the road, totally secluded. Our dogs loved it, they could run and play and it was close to everything. I miss living there, but I think anyone would enjoy Knoxville. I lived in East Knox County, and it was close to everything, just about 15 miles from Dollywood. I hate that we just put our house for sale, because, living in Knox County is great. There is alot to do, and still places where you can sit on the porch and look at the Smoky Mountains. I think you would make a great decision to move to Knoxville.

The traffic in West Knoxville is heavy on the interstate, however, East Knoxville is not that bad. Where we lived at, there were parks close by for biking or walking, and the weather is really not bad at all. If I can be of more help, please let me know.