Family Looking for a Town to Call Home (Knoxville, Chattanooga: credit, transfer)

[Oryce47]

Hi everyone,

My wife, son and I are looking to move to Tennessee and lay down some roots. We have fallin in love with Tennessee every time we have visited. I have done alot of research trying to find the perfect town to move to. I was wondering if I could get some suggestions or some places to look into. We want to find a town so we can start looking for jobs. We are both from small towns so we would like something along those lines, preferably in east Tennessee but open to anything.we have looked at places around Chattanooga, Farragut, Nolensville, ect. But just looking for some feedback on personal experience.

Some Background:

We have an active 2 year old

We both work in school districts right now

One a teacher and the other IT

We like the outdoors and swiming

But also like to be home bodies every now and again.

[Serious Conversation]

You need to post a budget. $200,000 will go a lot farther in Knoxville than Nashville. A low budget essentially eliminates metro Nashville. Where are you coming from?

I work in IT for a large employer in upper northeast TN. There is very little in the way of IT work here. Most IT work is with the hospital system, Eastman Chemical Company (and its contractors), and a few local/regional banks and credit unions. Many IT roles run through temp agencies. The local governments have an IT presence, but it is small and typically low pay. I have a fairly well paying job by local stands here in Johnson City (a little over $60,000), but if something happened to it, I'd have to move. Keep in mind that pay here is generally low for IT, even after accounting for the area's low cost of living.

Teachers always seem to be in demand in the Tri-Cities, especially with SPED credentials. You'd need to check on license transfer from your state to TN.

Chattanooga has some buzz as a tech hub. That might be a better fit. Knoxville is larger and has a deeper job pool overall.

[NYS2Tennessee]

We're in Knoxville with friends in Farragut. Most of my Farragut friends actually come into Knoxville proper or into northern Knox County for playdates. We have a 3 year old and for us Powell is perfect proximity to everything. Shopping, space, activities, playgrounds, outdoors, lakes and river/creeks, state parks, downtown, highway access... I joined a mom's group and there are plenty of meet ups easily accessible I couldn't be happier with Powell.

[Oryce47]

Originally Posted by Serious Conversation

You need to post a budget. $200,000 will go a lot farther in Knoxville than Nashville. A low budget essentially eliminates metro Nashville. Where are you coming from?

I work in IT for a large employer in upper northeast TN. There is very little in the way of IT work here. Most IT work is with the hospital system, Eastman Chemical Company (and its contractors), and a few local/regional banks and credit unions. Many IT roles run through temp agencies. The local governments have an IT presence, but it is small and typically low pay. I have a fairly well paying job by local stands here in Johnson City (a little over $60,000), but if something happened to it, I'd have to move. Keep in mind that pay here is generally low for IT, even after accounting for the area's low cost of living.

Teachers always seem to be in demand in the Tri-Cities, especially with SPED credentials. You'd need to check on license transfer from your state to TN.

Chattanooga has some buzz as a tech hub. That might be a better fit. Knoxville is larger and has a deeper job pool overall.

We don't have a hard budget yet because we would have to look at jobs but we currently are in Mississippi and the pay is just a bit higher in Tennessee. IT pay is incredible low here. Combined we bring home around 90k. My wife should not have an issue with a job from what I have read. She has her SPED and Admin licenses and it is easy to transfer over in Tennessee. Thanks for the heads up on the IT side of things, it sounds like the same song and dance as Mississippi. Temp agencies, banks, hospitals and state jobs every now and again. I will look more into the Chattanooga area and see if we like it. Thanks for the reply!

[Oryce47]

Originally Posted by NYS2Tennessee

We're in Knoxville with friends in Farragut. Most of my Farragut friends actually come into Knoxville proper or into northern Knox County for playdates. We have a 3 year old and for us Powell is perfect proximity to everything. Shopping, space, activities, playgrounds, outdoors, lakes and river/creeks, state parks, downtown, highway access... I joined a mom's group and there are plenty of meet ups easily accessible I couldn't be happier with Powell.

Thank you! This is the info I was looking for. I was looking for some where low key and we could just travel in when we needed to. How are the schools in Powell? I will look into that area a little more and thanks again for the help.

[Serious Conversation]

Originally Posted by Oryce47

We don't have a hard budget yet because we would have to look at jobs but we currently are in Mississippi and the pay is just a bit higher in Tennessee. IT pay is incredible low here. Combined we bring home around 90k. My wife should not have an issue with a job from what I have read. She has her SPED and Admin licenses and it is easy to transfer over in Tennessee. Thanks for the heads up on the IT side of things, it sounds like the same song and dance as Mississippi. Temp agencies, banks, hospitals and state jobs every now and again. I will look more into the Chattanooga area and see if we like it. Thanks for the reply!

Being from MS, you will understand the lay of the land. Knoxville has a decent IT presence with Oak Ridge related facilities. I know SAIC has a big facility down there, and they are also bringing a significant number of jobs to Cookeville. Knoxville also has the state university, Tennova, Covenant Health, etc. I've been to Chattanooga, but it is a smaller metro area and I didn't like it as much as Knoxville.

[Oryce47]

Originally Posted by Serious Conversation

Being from MS, you will understand the lay of the land. Knoxville has a decent IT presence with Oak Ridge related facilities. I know SAIC has a big facility down there, and they are also bringing a significant number of jobs to Cookeville. Knoxville also has the state university, Tennova, Covenant Health, etc. I've been to Chattanooga, but it is a smaller metro area and I didn't like it as much as Knoxville.

Yeah hoovering around Knoxville area is seeming like the best bet. A lot of small towns on the outskirts and you can pop in when you need to. We live in a town outside of Jackson,MS right now so it would be alot of the same thing for us. Knoxville looked to have a lot of university IT jobs available. They didn't post the pay on a few of them but the ones that they did it was higher than what I'm used to here. How is Oak Ridge? Just from research it turns up pretty high, good school, kind of smaller town, centrally located. But its hard to get a fill of it from a distance and I can't find to much info on it.

[Serious Conversation]

Originally Posted by Oryce47

Yeah hoovering around Knoxville area is seeming like the best bet. A lot of small towns on the outskirts and you can pop in when you need to. We live in a town outside of Jackson,MS right now so it would be alot of the same thing for us. Knoxville looked to have a lot of university IT jobs available. They didn't post the pay on a few of them but the ones that they did it was higher than what I'm used to here. How is Oak Ridge? Just from research it turns up pretty high, good school, kind of smaller town, centrally located. But its hard to get a fill of it from a distance and I can't find to much info on it.

There are several Knoxville based regulars who will probably chime in. Oak Ridge is a very safe, nice town. If you're actually working in Knoxville, it may be a bit of a drive to your office depending on where you are at.

For pay grades for the large employers, you may want to get on Glassdoor. I was offered a position several years ago for a lead desktop support technician at UT-Knoxville in their Office of Information Technology (OIT). It paid $28,000, and I couldn't make that little. Keep in mind that the economy was worse then, so that may have gone up some. More advanced IT roles appear to pay better, but they probably pay less than in the private sector. Still, university benefits are wonderful. I just read that exempt employees start with 24 PTO days per year - that's in addition to sick and holiday time, and all the other government benefits. If you could handle the pay, I'd definitely look in the public sector.

[AppalachianAngler]

Originally Posted by Serious Conversation

There are several Knoxville based regulars who will probably chime in. Oak Ridge is a very safe, nice town. If you're actually working in Knoxville, it may be a bit of a drive to your office depending on where you are at.

Yeah, Oak Ridge is a bit of a drive to commute to Knoxville. Farragut is a Knoxville suburb and is going to be similar to Madison or Ridgeland, MS, if that is where you are outside of Jackson.

You might want to check out Maryville if you are looking at smaller towns near Knoxville. Good schools and much shorter commute.

[Oryce47]

Originally Posted by AppalachianAngler

Yeah, Oak Ridge is a bit of a drive to commute to Knoxville. Farragut is a Knoxville suburb and is going to be similar to Madison or Ridgeland, MS, if that is where you are outside of Jackson.

You might want to check out Maryville if you are looking at smaller towns near Knoxville. Good schools and much shorter commute.

Thanks! I will check out Maryville, so one else recommended it on another site. I will research it alittle more.