How rural? (Johnson City, Kingsport, Bristol: transplants, rentals, house)

[angelaf]

I'm looking into the tri-cities area for relocation sometime in the next year. We'll need to be within a commutable distance of jobs, probably in Johnson City, Bristol or Kingsport, but we definitely don't want to live in town. On the map, Oak Grove and the vicinity looks like a good spot, but I'm wondering what it's like in that area. We don't want to live in town--we'd like to be out in the woods or in the mountains, somewhere rural. Can anyone tell me what towns/areas in the Tri-Cities area I should concentrate on for this criteria? We'll probably be renting for at least a year, and we'll be coming with 2 dogs and 2 cats, so it might be tough to find a place, but ideally we'll find a house with some privacy and a large lot... Any tips? What's it like between Oak Grove (or any of the other little towns, Pine Crest or Jonesborogh) and Johnson City? Are these like suburbs of Johnson City, or is this area still pretty rural? I'm also thinking of the Winston-Salem area in NC... can anyone compare WS to the the tri-cities area? One thing I liked about WS was how rural it was just outside the city, like around King--you could live outside this little town and still have a very short commute into WS. Is the tri-cities area like this?
Thanks for reading my somewhat dis-jointed question!!

[mbmouse]

Hi, I think Tn is much nicer but that is just me.
As far a looking for a rural area yet close to the city and have pets, want to rent.....you might have to give up on one of those. There aren't to many places to rent out of the more porulated areas and even fewer that will allow pets, exspecially dogs. However, if you want to buy, your options are MANY! there are a lot of area that describe what you are looking for, Gray, Boones Creeek, Bluntville, Fall Branch, Jonesborough, Harmony and more...as for Oak Grove, I'll have to lookthat one up, there are lots of little communties with different names than the mailling address city. All that I mentioned are more inbtween Kingsport, Johnson City and Bristol. Do you have children? Looking for a school with certine activities or interests? You do realise if you do go really rural and find you need to buy to have pets, the interest rates on a rural home are a bit higher, but not much, just something else to consider.
If you would like to email me I can help you with lots of liks and information to hellp you move to the area. I would be happy too

[atlantagreg30127]

A bit off-topic as it doesn't suggest specific areas, but a suggestion if you don't mind:

When you DO buy in a "rural" area up there, make room in your budget for a whole-house backup generator. My sister moved to Tennessee and loves it, but, in the winter each year at least once they will have some sort of ice or snow storm that leaves them without power for 1-5 days straight. Power crews will focus on getting power back up in the more heavily dense areas first - rural communities come last.

For around $5,000 they had a whole-house generator installed and LOVE it. It kicks on automatically when the power goes out and powers their fridge, washer/drier, and in the summer, the A/C. Fireplaces provide heat during outages.

Anyway - just a tip for moving to ANY rural area, really.

[Jhubtin]

Originally Posted by atlantagreg30127

A bit off-topic as it doesn't suggest specific areas, but a suggestion if you don't mind:

When you DO buy in a "rural" area up there, make room in your budget for a whole-house backup generator. My sister moved to Tennessee and loves it, but, in the winter each year at least once they will have some sort of ice or snow storm that leaves them without power for 1-5 days straight. Power crews will focus on getting power back up in the more heavily dense areas first - rural communities come last.

For around $5,000 they had a whole-house generator installed and LOVE it. It kicks on automatically when the power goes out and powers their fridge, washer/drier, and in the summer, the A/C. Fireplaces provide heat during outages.

Anyway - just a tip for moving to ANY rural area, really.

That's funny! Well not really. That is just standard operating procedure for us here in S. Florida.

[mrradio]

and the longest we lost power was about 6 hours. A few minutes to maybe an hour and a half is more common. Electricity here is as reliable or more so than in NY where we came from.

[angelaf]

Mbmouse, we don't have kids and won't be having any, so schools are not an issue. I'm surprised to hear that it might be hard to find what we're looking for, because while I've been researching western NC I've found many "pet-friendly" rentals, and quite a few in rural areas. BUT, of course, NC is not TN and vice versa. Up here (near the Twin Cities, just inside Wisconsin) it's nearly impossible to find a place to rent with pets--so impossible that we ended up buying in a place we knew we'd only be for a few years. You say TN is better--you mean better than NC? I've been hell-bent on NC for months but after reading lots in the NC forum on this site I'm starting to hesitate. I don't prefer to do what everyone else is doing (although we wouldn't be near Charlotte or Raleigh as most of the other transplants are) and one thread I read today really frightened me--about animals being intentionally run over in the street. I know things like that happen everywhere, even up here, but the posters make it sound like a pretty common and openly practiced thing. That makes me hesitate--I don't want to live among people like that. We'd like to eventually start an animal rescue/sanctuary so we'll be looking for some acreage when we buy, but I don't think we'll want to commit to an area right away. I guess we might have to settle for being in town (with a big, fenced yard for our two dogs) until we buy...
Thanks for the tip about the generator... definitely worth doing. Our power company can be a pain here too--we frequently lose power during storms, usually for a few hours, although never for longer than a day-- the longest time was for about 12 hours. Long enough to melt all the ice cream though!

[mbmouse]

Sometimes people will rent pet friendly homes with a barn and such out in the country but you are looking at $1200 a month and up. It is possable to find though. Here is the link to the local news papers http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/
http://www.timesnews.net/
http://www.greenevillesun.com/
Keep an eye on those, the realestate, rentals section, you just might find something.
Happy hunting!

[angelaf]

Yikes! I guess if we could pay $1200 a month we'd buy, even if we weren't sure how long we were staying. Thanks for the links, I'll definitely look and see what we can find. We're in town right now and it isn't bad, we have a good-sized yard fenced and the dogs like it just fine... plus plenty of walks keep us in shape too! Just can't wait to get back out into the country with some space and quiet...

[TornadoAlley]

Originally Posted by atlantagreg30127

A bit off-topic as it doesn't suggest specific areas, but a suggestion if you don't mind:

When you DO buy in a "rural" area up there, make room in your budget for a whole-house backup generator. My sister moved to Tennessee and loves it, but, in the winter each year at least once they will have some sort of ice or snow storm that leaves them without power for 1-5 days straight. Power crews will focus on getting power back up in the more heavily dense areas first - rural communities come last.

For around $5,000 they had a whole-house generator installed and LOVE it. It kicks on automatically when the power goes out and powers their fridge, washer/drier, and in the summer, the A/C. Fireplaces provide heat during outages.

Anyway - just a tip for moving to ANY rural area, really.

Good tip! Do these get installed in the garage? Are they the old car engine motors? Where we live I have a portable generator. I think it makes 3200 watts. Supplied everything a few months ago for 8hrs! Never thought I would need it in California. I spent $240. Told wife some day we may need this. She smiled with that "sure dear" look. Well, we had fans, fridge, computer, microwave, etc running. EVEN the neighbor plugged into it for his fridge.

Anyways. I agree. They are well worth it. I assume you need to supply gas for it too? How does that work?

[sleeper]

"I assume you need to supply gas for it too? How does that work?"

Well, you store gas safely in an out-building..& since gas can go bad after a while, you simply add recommended dose of "STA-BIL" gas treatment to it..
Makes it last safely for a year (if needed)...

Nothing like the peace of mind of a Generaror !!!! & Fireplace !!!!