Louisville, Lenoir City, Maryville Information (Knoxville, Farragut: for sale, city hall, how much)

[mountaindreamr]

Hi, don't even know where to start. My Husband and I have wanted to move to East TN for over 10 years and for one reason or another it hasn't happened. We are finally making the move this coming Spring. We don't know anyone in TN and would appreciate any advice. We are from a fairly mid-size town in Central Illinois. (19,000 Population) We are looking for an area that is not congested, yet close to grocery shopping and civilization. We have a son who will be entering 5th Grade and loves Baseball. Looking for an area where we can buy a 3 bedroom house with at least a 1/2 acre and not spend more than $190,000. We have been to Maryville, but my Husband thinks it might be to congested with all the various Highways running through it. It seems schools are very good in Maryville though. As for Lenoir City we only visited there a couple of times so we don't really know to much about it. And for Louisville we don't know anything about it just that it seems local to these areas. I think if we lived in Louisville my son would go to Maryville High School? Any suggestions at all for these areas or maybe another area? Love the Mountains! Any help appreciated!

[PhxBuckeye]

Hi MountainDreamr,

My wife and I are in a similar situation as the one you and your family appear to be in. We live on the NW side of the Phoenix metro area and really want to move to the Knoxville area. We have two daughters with the eldest being 8 and the youngest being nearly two. My parents have lived in Loudon (Tellico Village) for several years now. I love their house and the area is beautiful (just a block or so from the river on a golf course), however, they complain that there are no stores close to them. They don't have any kids left in their house so they don't care too much about the schools, but from my research, they don't appear to be too good. I do know a guy who grew up in Lenoir City and I think very highly of him as he's a good guy and very smart so the schools there can't be too bad.


It's true the schools in Maryville -- that's the area we have targeted -- Farragut, and Louisville do appear to be better -- if you believe Greatschools.com, SchoolDigger etc.


My wife is a recent nursing graduate and just started working as an "IV nurse" here. She's been offered a couple of jobs there, but since she has little experience the compensation offers have been surprisingly low. We're likely gonna put our house here up for sale and after she has six months experience and then just pick up and go. For us it's about being near my parents and a lifestyle change.

It's hard for me to say if Maryville is too congested as I've never lived there but with a couple of freeways running right through the area I would think you could get to most places pretty quickly.

BTW, for anyone reading this, if you have any leads for my wife pls let me know. She's a Filipina and I've read there really isn't any good Filipino food in East Tennessee.

I hope this is helpful but I'm hardly an expert on the area so hopefully others will jump in here.

[DaveC20853]

Area schools have been discussed a number of times. If you use the "Search This Forum" you'll find all the info you need. major roads in Maryville can get congested at rush hour. You really need to visit the various areas to see what really meets your needs/desires (some people define close as within 20 minutes others as 5 minutes.

[TheShadow]

Please define "close to shopping and civilization". Not trying to be smart, just need clarification. Close to me is 10 miles, to others it might be 1/2 mile.

[PhxBuckeye]

I talked to my parents yesterday who say they now have three restaurants and a small, but nice, grocery store within a few minutes from them. A dollar store too.

[TheShadow]

Lenoir City has the basics including Walmart, large grocery stores, and Home Depot. It has numerous smaller specialty stores for things like auto parts, boots, clothing, Radio Shack, etc. We drive to Farragut (about 15 min from Lenoir City) for most larger stores like Belk, Target, Hobby Lobby, Costco, Gander Mountain, furniture stores, or just about anything else you could possibly need. Maryville does have better shopping than Lenoir City, and even though several highways cut through Maryville, most are small highways with two lanes going each direction, not like freeways. I would not call Maryville congested by my standards.

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by PhxBuckeye

My wife is a recent nursing graduate and just started working as an "IV nurse" here. She's been offered a couple of jobs there, but since she has little experience the compensation offers have been surprisingly low. We're likely gonna put our house here up for sale and after she has six months experience and then just pick up and go.

Pay is low here. COL is low but so are the salaries, so it may not be so much about her experience. Also, six months experience isn't going to change much anywhere that you live. You might try asking those same places that gave offers how much they pay someone with two years experience, five, ten....

[LauraC]

Originally Posted by mountaindreamr

Hi, don't even know where to start. My Husband and I have wanted to move to East TN for over 10 years and for one reason or another it hasn't happened. We are finally making the move this coming Spring. We don't know anyone in TN and would appreciate any advice. We are from a fairly mid-size town in Central Illinois. (19,000 Population) We are looking for an area that is not congested, yet close to grocery shopping and civilization. We have a son who will be entering 5th Grade and loves Baseball. Looking for an area where we can buy a 3 bedroom house with at least a 1/2 acre and not spend more than $190,000. We have been to Maryville, but my Husband thinks it might be to congested with all the various Highways running through it. It seems schools are very good in Maryville though. As for Lenoir City we only visited there a couple of times so we don't really know to much about it. And for Louisville we don't know anything about it just that it seems local to these areas. I think if we lived in Louisville my son would go to Maryville High School? Any suggestions at all for these areas or maybe another area? Love the Mountains! Any help appreciated!

How can you buy a house somewhere in East Tennessee before you know where you will be working? Just asking since you didn't address being somewhere near to your jobs.

[Barking Spider]

They might be self employed, or work from home, so the location does not matter that much.

I'm self employed, so I pick the area and house I wanted. It had nothing to do with a commute to work.

[BTess42]

I have lived in Maryville for 30+ years and can tell you it is a great place to live. The Maryville School system is one of the best in the state. While Maryville does have a couple of highways running through it, these do not convey the traffic of interstate levels. It is EXTREMELY RARE to see traffic at a stop of more than 5 minutes or so in wait time. The only exceptions to this would be the route coming in from the South Knoxville side of town into Alcoa; you might see a 10 or 15 minute snarl up here when someone inevitably wrecks in the rain during peak "rush hour" times. To clarify, Alcoa and Maryville are a kind of two-in-one city that all sort of blends in together; it's hard to discern where one ends and the other begins.

Louisville is basically a suburb of Maryville and primarily residential; it's more a community than an actual town, although it does have its own post office and city hall (and more recently, a Dollar General Store), and is centered around the area lake. It doesn't, however, lay claim to its own grocery store; you have to drive in to Alcoa/Maryville for that. This isn't a huge inconvenience as you're only talking about 5 miles or so, depending on where you are relative to the lake itself. It's a perfect place to raise your kids, as it is largely rural/suburban. Kids in Louisville go to county schools, not Maryville City, unless you are willing to pay tuition to the city. There are only 4 high schools in the Maryville/Alcoa area -- two city and two county (Blount). Both Maryville City Schools and the City of Alcoa school system have good reputations for academics, although Maryville's is considered much more prestigious. Your 5th grader would not attend city schools; Louisville is primarily serviced by 5 elementary/middle schools in and around Blount County (again, your location around the lake, as well as the grade level of your child, pretty much determines which school your child attends). The county schools do not offer a lot of the opportunities that the city schools do (I speak authoritatively here, having attended both in my youth). There are several youth baseball leagues in the area(both city and county) which your son would enjoy.

You could easily find the property you describe in the price range you want in both the Maryville City and Louisville areas. Both areas provide a beautiful panoramic view of the mountains. On a personal level, although Maryville City affords better schools, I would probably choose to live in Louisville. It is quiet, peaceful, with lots of room for your son to grow and play. In addition, it's slightly more convenient to Knoxville if you want a little "city" living (nightlife, shopping, the Arts). What you won't find in Louisville are: places to dine out (you have to go to Maryville or Knoxville), grocery stores, pharmacies, physician/dentist offices, clothing or retail stores (other than a Dollar General, which is a Goodlettsville, Tennessee-based discount chain that sells cheap made-in-China type goods --great if you just need to run out and grab some cleaning supplies or a birthday card, but not so good if you are looking for high quality). The good news is that you are just down the road and less than ten minutes from Maryville or Alcoa, less than twenty from Knoxville, and you have great views of the lake and the mountains.

Sorry to go so long, but wanted to give you an accurate idea of what the area offers. Another plus: even though Louisville/Maryville/Alcoa are nestled at the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, we see very little snow and ice here. The weather is great most of the year round. We're snuggled between a plateau and the mountains, so most weather happens around us and just bypasses the area...if you are coming from central Illinois, I'm sure you'll love the idea of never having to shovel your sidewalk again!