Relocating Questions (Knoxville, Oak Ridge, Maryville: transplants, rentals, new home)

[ventakas]

Soooo..... I have been doing a lot of research and have a few questions. Excuse me if I seem scattered here, but I am so confused!

Background: We are moving to E. TN in June. We were originally going to move in Feb. but have decided that we are going to wait until the kids finish school for the year..... you guys get out earlier there than we do in NJ and we don't want our son (1st grade) to get anxious with moving in the middle of the year if we don't HAVE to. We were originally focusing on Maryville because of the schools, but have since widened our search to Knoxville. We will be visiting in April for a short visit to have a look around and find a place to rent.

1. Is Craigslist a good indication of what the rents are in the area? I suspect some price gouging (as in, hey let's see if these yankees will pay a higher rent than a native TN...)

2. How in the HECK do you tell what is a good area and what is a not so good area in Knoxville? I get stay away from the south and east, but I am clueless where the lines get drawn here. I tried looking up different school districts, but it is just getting sooo confusing!

3. Maybe I should just tell you what we are looking for and maybe you can tell me what might fit our bill. We are looking to rent for $800 - 1000 per month, preferrably no more than $900 if we can help it. We need a good, solid school district. We would like a 3-4 bedroom single family home with a garage and a bit of privacy in a decent neighborhood. Oh yeah, and we would prefer NOT to live in "Little NorthEast" section of TN. We are moving to CHANGE our lifestyle, not move and try to change the area, KWIM?

Any thoughts/input would be appreciated! Thanks!

Danielle

[Pam& Bill]

I fail to understand how anyone on Craigslist would know a "yankee" is looking and they are out to price gouge a yankee?
Are these your real true feelings? Why leave Jersey if you feel this way before you even get here?
I'll tell ya what, if you really think that way, you'll hate it here. Remember you are moving to change your lifestyle, change your outlook on Tennesseans before you cross the state line.
Pam

[creeksitter]

Generally you'll pay more rent for homes in the best school districts.

[weisgarber1]

Originally Posted by Pam& Bill

I fail to understand how anyone on Craigslist would know a "yankee" is looking and they are out to price gouge a yankee?
Are these your real true feelings? Why leave Jersey if you feel this way before you even get here?
I'll tell ya what, if you really think that way, you'll hate it here. Remember you are moving to change your lifestyle, change your outlook on Tennesseans before you cross the state line.
Pam

I agree. I thought that reference to "gouging a yankee" was misguided at best.

[J&Em]

Pam brought up exactly what bothered me about your post Danielle. You emphasize not wanting to be in a "LittleNortheast" but the first thing you worry about is an <us vs them> mentality when you ask about Craig's List advertising which immediately says you feel you are different and separate.

Now... to state the obvious stuff that many don't always see as obvious:

Without knowing anything about where you live and what you want to change in your lifestyle we can't even begin to know what you need or which areas are most likely to fit your requirements. I can tell you that when we decided to move to TN we spent a bit of time driving around many communities before deciding where to concentrate our search. I still couldn't define in words everything that made what we chose stand out but we both said "home" when we saw it.

Renting is a good idea until you feel truly committed to the area but with school age kids you are wise to try and get them into a good school -but rent may not reflect cost of housing. Look around at what you can/can't afford to buy before settling on an area to move to. Spend time in the neighborhoods and go to the local supermarkets to get a a feel for the day to day stuff.

If you are moving without jobs then you need to make sure at least one of you has a job before you chose where to live or you will have issues from the get-go. If job(s) are not an issue you will need to check into commuting times and distances you are willing to do from your job. Roads are not always direct here but traffic is less than in much of the northeast around metro NY. There are not large "bad" areas in and around Knoxville as one would think coming from places close to Newark, for example. Again you will need to drive around many of them to determine what is bad to you. There are plenty of safe communities in the area. On the whole education in much of Knox, out in Blount County (includes Maryville) and in Oak Ridge is quite good.

You might feel a lot less confused if you actually have seen Knoxville and surrounding communities and be better able to articulate what you want. Given a chance everyone here in East TN has been helpful, friendly and quite polite and members of this board are no different. We have seen too many 'misfit complaints' because people have built in prejudices and expectations that color their interactions and often result in not fitting in. We are truly trying to keep you from making that mistake as well. Pam and I are both successful transplants from NY, and there are many more here from all over.

[TN Gal now]

a realtor/friend made an excellent suggestion regarding when to move a school age child.

Although my first thought was just as yours, wait til the school year has ended, she suggested otherwise.

Her suggestion was to move about six -eight weeks +/- before the school year ends at the NEW school. Immediately enroll at the new school. That way, your child has an opportunity to make friends, he'll learn who lives nearby, meet kids who might visit and play with him during the summer months, and when school starts in the fall he won't be the "new kid" in class and starting school won't be quite so scary because it's not brand new and he'll already have friends there. He'll have had time to nearly finish school with his old friends, and most "learning" for the school year will be complete by this time. You'll have an opportunity to meet parents and learn about summer activities.

This made perfect sense to me, seems like a win/win, and maybe is something you might want to consider when planning your move...

Good luck!

[ventakas]

Sorry for offending the previous posters. It was just a lame joke. I don't post on message boards often and I forget that tone does not translate very well. I should have put a smiley after that. I didn't even realize there was a wink on the side until just now. Of course I do not think that TN people on craigslist think that yankees are coming and so they gouge the price. Really, ridiculous. I had however heard that craigslist is not always the best indicator of actual rentals in the area, and I had seen many ads in local paper listings on the web that suggest that this is true.

That being said, every TN'n that i have ever met has been awesome. My husband and I love the south and have been dying to leave NJ for forever now. As for fitting in, I tend to make friends easily everywhere i go. I joke around a lot.


Down to business. Here we go. I am currently in Central Jersey where I work HARD to get nowhere it seems. My husband is retired and while I will be searching for a job as an RN (I am a new graduate) when I get down there, we are not job dependent.

Lifestyle wise, we are just looking for a slower pace of living with good food and nice people. We want good schools for our little ones in a safe neighborhood. We want to be able to do out-doorsy stuff in our free time (hiking, fishing, boating, bicycling, sports, etc.) We want to assimilate. We are nice people that are tired of living surrounded by mean people. We want to embrace a new environment. We would also like to try working to live instead of living to work. As far as I am concerned, TN fits the bill. We are coming down to look for the specific area, but are trying to gather as much info as possible before we do in order to make the most out of the time we spend in the area.

Any suggestions on said areas would be great.

Thanks TN gal - that is a really interesting point and I would never have though of that!

[TedTLPN]

I think you really need to re-evaluate your "needs" there are plenty of houses for rent in Maryville w/out garages in your price range.

People here are VERY strange about their sense of humor.. Once you know them well you can get away with just about anything, but when you are new to a crowd, they really don't take a liking to people forcing familiarity on them.

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by TedTAce

I think you really need to re-evaluate your "needs" there are plenty of houses for rent in Maryville w/out garages in your price range.

People here are VERY strange about their sense of humor.. Once you know them well you can get away with just about anything, but when you are new to a crowd, they really don't take a liking to people forcing familiarity on them.

Wow. I disagree.

This is the most familiar place I have ever lived. Set aside time to run errands. You will end up talking to people in the grocery store, the bank, the stores...Knoxvillians have never met a stranger.

Now, Ted is from Florida, moved to the Maryville area and wants to go home. It wasn't his thing, so his responses might be colored by that.

I'm from the northeast, lived in Florida for quite awhile, hated it, and have lived here for five years. I live in the Fountain City area. Mostly locals in my area, and that is the way I like it. More transplants in west Knoxville and Farragut. Still a lot of locals, too, but there is a definite vibe change. However, if you are looking for a newer house, most of them can be had in those latter areas. To be honest, an awful lot of transplants land in new subdivisions, so if that is what you are looking for you will have to meet your neighbors first.

I think that rental price might be okay, although a tad low. Google for rentals. I think you'll find a lot more than Craigslist.

[Barking Spider]

When we came here in early 94 to check out Knoxville as a potential new home, we did just what Hik suggested.
We talked to EVERYONE we came in contact with. If we were in line at McDonalds, we talked to the people around us. We would stop in to a Weigles and talk to the people behind the counter.
We asked a lot of questions, but for the most part, people talked to US, and we just listened.

One of the things that made us choose Knoxville was the way we were made to feel like home, by pretty much everyone we came in contact with. Moving here in 94 was one of the best decisions we have ever made.