what dissappointed me about moving to East TN (Knoxville, Chattanooga: housing, rental)

[LauraC]

Originally Posted by Tek_Freek

If you will all note (or y'all will note?) what I have highlighted in red I think you might begin to see part of the problem she ran into. Obviously this is their first move, at least the first one outside their immediate area. It's easy to miss what some of us might consider to be important when you have no previous experience.

Even if you have moved a lot (I think I've moved 9 times in my life), if the places you moved to are all similar in some basic areas like size, weather, cost of living, you don't know what's important or what you take for granted, until after the move. Some things will reveal themselves during long visits to wrong places. Some won't.

My shocker in going from suburban Long Island, NY to suburban Maryland was lack of stand alone bakeries (not lack of a particular place but bakeries in general). Now, you might think that's a petty thing but where I come from, when you visit people you bring buns, rolls, cake or pastry. Even if you don't eat it, you stop at a bakery before you visit. Most towns have more than one standalone bakery. You don't get the stuff from the supermarket baking section or a stop at Dunkin' Donuts. I had to ask Maryland co-workers, "What do you bring when you visit people, here?" It wasn't the actual cake I missed. It was losing a social custom I had automatically taken for granted was everywhere in the US. You visit - you stop at a bakery first.

Visiting Asheville, NC for a week revealed I needed to pay attention to population density in relocation. It's supposed to be a nice mountain town. I just about freaked at all of the people, traffic and lack of parking, lack of what I consider to be zoning laws. I was up on it being a tourist town because I've lived in a tourist town before and knew enough about that impact. But, I realized, I like sprawl. I like parking lots not city street parking or parking garages. I like Wal-Mart. I don't need or want to deal with a "downtown" area. I needed to live someplace that was more spread out - suburban. I don't want to exit my place of residence onto a major 4 lane road. With about 70,500 people, and not even counting tourists and commuters, Asheville was more than double my comfort zone. I just didn't know what 70,500 plus people felt like because I lived in suburbia my entire adult life with pops under 30,000 people (only I didn't know the population numbers when I lived there). When I began to research TN after visiting Asheville, the first thing I did was eliminate anyplace with more than 35,000 people.

One thing I do want to say that might have been unexpected without a visit is the lack of nice apartment complexes in suburban areas outside of a major city. I guess maybe that has to do with how affordable it is to buy a home that there aren't many professional people who rent apartments in suburbia. I saw that in both the areas outside of Knoxville and the areas outside of Asheville. If you are looking to rent in a nice modern apartment complex (and not with college students) in a town of less than 30,000, you've got your work cut out for you in Tennessee. In fact, there are so few that when the original poster said she was in a nice complex in Seymour, I knew exactly where she lived. There are so few of them, you know all of them. I found the same to be true with nice towns outside of Asheville.

You can research and you can visit but if you take some things for granted (because you've never had to deal with "it" or a lack of "it"), you'll likely not realize how important they are to you (in a positive or negative way) until you move.

[MomsTn]

When we moved here, the first thing I looked for was a Christian bookstore.
I'm a reader, and it was important to find a place to buy my books.
Oh, I know there is Amazon or Barnes & Noble online, but, it's just not the same. I like wandering through the store, picking up books, and deciding on what I want to read next. Ordering online kind of takes the fun out of it.

We found one, and a few weeks later, it closed.
Then, we found another, and six months later, the owners retired.
Finally, they built one that was a little bit of a drive, but, worth it.
Now, we live closer to the store, so, it's not much of a drive.

Where we live right now, we have to drive everywhere.
It's all spread out, no downtown. There are strip malls everywhere.
At the time that we were transferring here, the only real research I could do was at the library.
There just wasn't the information online that there is now.
I read books, and found newspapers, and found addresses and snail mailed everyone.

Still all in all, it was a shock when we moved here.
It was so different.
We were so used to a much slower pace, and everyone was in such a hurry here.
We didn't have the luxury to take a trip out and check out the area, but, my husband was born here, and had a little bit of an idea, but, he was still not prepared for the faster pace.
Our move was initially to be closer to his parents.

Now, we are ready to go home, and will be taking our trip in April to check out the area we will be moving to.
I'm counting the days.

I have found so much information on the internet, and talking to people.
Reading this forum.
I know that there will be a Christian Bookstore, there is a downtown, we will be far enough from a metro area to not be touched, yet, within an hour if we actually wanted to go there.
I know about the schools, and I'll be calling, not emailing the principal of the school to get an actual one on one opinion.
I've seen pictures, and I have checked the real estate market.

There is a very good hospital in town, and no shortage of doctors or nurses.
I've even found the information for City rec, and know that they have Adult Softball... a big plus for my husband, who loves to play.

I've done my homework, and now, all we need to do is go down and visit.
It worked out, that our little girl will have Spring Break about the time that we want to go... tax refund will be back by then, and so, off we will go.

Now granted, we might absolutely hate the area, but, I don't think so.
My Daddy told me that he's driven over to the town many times, and he really thinks that we will like it.

[Joss]

I think that, at the end of the day, there will be a given amount of differences between where you were and where you are. As many say, though, "Your mileage may vary". Some places are WAAAAYYYY different and can require a lot of adjustment.

But then, if there were not, there would be little reason to move in the first place.

Those of you that have never left the area you've grown up in and are making your "first big move" may find this challenging. Sometimes problems are nothing more than perception. Is your cup half empty or half full? Is it an adventure or a frightening experience?

You can (and should) make a lists of things that are important to you - but they will probably not be complete because you have NO IDEA how much you have taken for granted in your place of origin. Perhaps the only way you get used to big moves is to experience them several times.

The best advice I can offer is to simply open yourselves to the experience. Get out and explore. Say hello to people. Laugh about your new ignorance and let people help you. Contrary to our media, the vast majority of people are good, friendly and helpful - if you give them a chance.

And I can not count how many times in my life I have calmed myself saying,

"Well... this is gonna be new."

[bam531]

I moved to Tennessee from Ohio a little over 20 years ago and wasn't to sure of it myself. But after about 6 months of being here ,I began to like it. It will take some time. Living in Gatlinburg can't be easy, we go there quite a bit, (too much traffic and tourists). Did you know anyone before you moved here? I was lucky, my parents had moved here a few months before I did, so that helped. I hope things work out, I think if you could move out of Gatlinburg you will find lower prices ( we do our shopping around here before we go there to stay any length of time), and maybe a better atomsphere. Good Luck and hang in there, it will get better with time. And sorry, I have shopped at Meijers before ( we go to Ohio to see family) and Wal-Mart has them beat. Oh, and you don't have to convert to being a Vol fan, I'm still not a Vol fan...can't take the Buckeyes out of my blood!! Want to know something else that's scary? I'm a Gator Fan too!!!

[mrs1885]

I just hopped on here. I moved to eastern TN from FL. I've never lived anywhere else and loved where I was born. But it changed so much and became a place I hated. Gangs and drugs moved into the town I was in. Millionaires moved onto the island I was born on. Time had come to move along as terrible as I hated it.

We looked everywhere. Other towns in Florida, Vermont, New York. Then we looked in TN. It took us about 5 months to find a home. We finally picked about 50 houses we liked in our area and price range and headed up for a week. We met with a realtor and narrowed our search to about 12 houses through process of elimination.

The second house we saw we bought. It's a 5 bedroom 2 bath brick house that needs some work, on 7.25 acres in the country. I have amazing mountain views. We picked it up for $91,000! But I drive 2 hours each way to work. But where we live - our kids have gone from dreading school in FL to loving it here. Even when they are sick they beg to go. The teachers care about the kids education and volunteer to stay after school to tudor the kids for free.

My town has about 200 people and doesn't even come up on this site. It's super tiny. We share a zip code with Rock Island even though we are much closer to Spencer. The first week in our house I think we met every neighbor we had. They stopped in and offered assistance of every kind. We felt so welcome here.

BUT the job my husband had fell through and we were left with no income. It was a bad 3 months waiting for me to find a job. Fortunately our families were in a situation to help us out. But if they hadn't been I have no clue what we would have done.

Moral I guess is at least you have jobs!! Finding the perfect house can take some time, but I really really really enjoyed looking for ours. We spend hours every day on line at realtor.com. It's a great site for looking for houses. You can put in all kinds of search criteria and can even have it check for houses that meet your requirements in surrounding towns.

After finding houses we liked, I'd head right back here to check out the crime rates and schools and such. I got pretty darn handy at it!!

So, if you are having a hard time still, feel free to PM me with the towns you do like and your search data and I'd be happy to help you look!!

Also, there's a great guy on here - Kerry - that's lived in Pikeville forever. He helped me with tons of info and another member who's planning her move this summer. If I can find his ID on here I'll PM him and ask him to hop over here to see if he may be able to help too.

Other than that, we've loved this moved. It's the best thing we've ever done. We're happy, the kids are happy, we have wonderful neighbors and schools and everything!!

Good luck with the house hunt - and keep us posted.

[hiknapster]

Mrs1885:

Your story is so similiar to mine!

We love it here like you.

The only thing we did not experience was the welcoming committee. There is a reason for this. The neighborhood we live in is very transient, with a lot of transplants. A lot.

Now the neighborhood is up for sale and most houses on my street are empty and all of the ones surrounding us.

But it is a very safe neighborhood and decent housing. That's all I could have really wished for, but I did wonder where the southern hospitality was at first!

So it took awhile for us to find our way.

Once I found a job that I liked, and got to speak to Tenneseans on the phone all day, I started to feel like the people were really nice. I'm sure we will find a nice neighborhood like you did.

I just cannot stress enough the importance of finding jobs first. It was a really rough first year. Jobs were very hard to find and pay was not always great. I must also disclose that my mother helped us a lot. I mean a whole lot. Easily, she sent us $10,000 the first year. It was the first time in my adult life that she had to send money, and I am 45. We would have not survived without that!

[cobalt]

After reading the posts generated by the young women from Michigan I must say that I am looking forward to my move to Tennessee. I,m currently living in Oregon its over 2000 miles away from Clarksville where my son will be going to college. My wife is a pediatric nurse so when we move into a community we like to think we bring something of worth to it. I love the fact that everyone has a story and i know it will be interesting to talk with people from an area Ive never lived in before. Tennessee will be a huge improvement for us, Everything is more expensive where we live in Central Oregon ie: our house is 1850 sq ft and we paid $218,000 for it 18 months ago now it will sell for over $350,000 !! we consistently pay some of the highest prices for gasoline in the nation, currently $2.70 gal. Oregon is a cesspool of liberal politics run amuk !! if you stand still too long they will tax the ground your on !!! it costs the same or more to go to college at the state run schools as it does to go to private schools in TN. We are just so pleased that we can afford APSU, sell our home here and pay off all our debt and still buy a nice home in clarksville. I know that my attitude makes a real difference in how I will adjust but I,m looking forward to a slower change of pace and enjoying the people and history of TN. Moving is hard just keep counting the blessings and you will get through .I dont know about E, TN but we had no problems with finding good job prospects and housing. hey grow a garden if you can there and enjoy your own Tomatoes!!! Good luck and God bless you, Thomas in central Oregon

[SPLIT]

Thomas : Reading your reply and hear your optimisium. You leaving right now for Tenn? Your housing profit of $130 K will be taxed if you leave under the 24 months of residence. Yes , no .??

[LilyLiz]

Very encouraging posts!

[cobalt]

Sorry "Split" I didnt make it clear, I wont be leaving Oregon for another 18 months. We visited Nashville last year and drove around the area. My son is very musicaly talented and wants to be where the "action" is. Belmont University was our first choice but its becoming too elite and costly. APSU has a very comprehensive music dept and the dept chairwoman was very gracious and helpful. I,m a history buff and we visited the Carnton plantation home in Franklin it was stunning to be where there was so much history made. Thank you for careing enough to watch my back !!! Thomas