Towns 45-60 minutes outside of Knoxville like Harriman and Kingston, still expensive? (Johnson City: sales)

[cowpat5]

Hello. I'm looking to purchase a small (2 bedroom, 1 bath would be fine, 750-1,000 sq ft) with 2-3 acres for 125-150K outside of Knoxville in a rural area near towns like Rockwood, Oliver Springs, Harriman, Kingston... I need to be able to commute to towns like Farragut, Tellico Village, and Loudon for work (I own/operate a service business). But I keep reading that... Tennessee is expensive now. Some of you guys are making me nervous!! I currently live near Disney World, in a suburb outside of Orlando, FL and places are expensive here!! One of the major reasons why I want to leave Florida is because the place has become so expensive! (don't get me wrong. Not the *only* reason). I'm not looking to move to Knoxville, the city itself, or even in one of the suburbs directly on the outskirts of Knoxville... but in a small town that is not too bad of a commute to the suburbs that are OUTSIDE of Knoxville.

[TheShadow]

Why don't you try Zillow or Realtor.com and check out the prices in your desired areas? Home prices in the cities and suburbs have shot up in the last 2 years.

Yes, there are a few mobile homes and small homes in the upper end of the range, but not many in any given town. Harriman is only 36 miles from Tellico Village, but it's a jaunt, part by freeway, part through town, and then through the village, so it might take almost an hour to get from Harriman to some addresses in TV. Crossville and Fairfield Glade might also be areas where you could find that sort of work (windows and pressure washing), but again, housing in your range will be outside of town in the more rural areas, and mostly mobile homes or little 2 bedroom older homes. Zillow and Realtor.com are your friends in this search.

[Jim37680]

A former local City Manager posted this on his FB page. May give you some idea of the real estate costs up here northeast of the Knoxville area in Tennessee. That Mountain City data is a bit of a conundrum- the only explanation I have is that there were not many sales in this low population county and those few sales were confined to the very high end properties and farms. Many of the high end properties are owned by out-of-state or out of county folks.

[cowpat5]

Damn a lot of home selling in Kingsport... it's like no matter where you go in the US anymore... PEOPLE MOVE THERE *sad, comical cry*

[Riley.]

Thanks for posting this.
My husband and I very much liked the area northeast of Knoxville....
We liked Johnson City, too, for 'stuff' but didn't look much around the outskirts, which is where we'd want to be, because we were not ready to actually move. We were reconning.
I'm ready and we're trying to set up a rental for July (we know it will be HOT but that'll be okay. I can do hot. I can also do 40 below.....hahahah but I don't want to anymore!)

[Mister 7]

Shouldn't be too bad, but you won't be anywhere close to Knoxville at least an hour away which is fine by you, and it might cost more than that.

But you are correct, TN isn't cheap anymore....at least the larger cities. My house has doubled in value in 5 years.