Hey everyone, it's raining outside today and the community was supposed to have a neighborhood yard sale but I think that got thrown out the window with the incoming rain clouds. So I found myself editing a YouTube video when I realized I wouldn’t finish it by Monday when I try to release them. So I shot a quick video and now I’m making it a blog post. 

Luckily for you, this one is going to be fun. I wanna talk about the Pros and Cons of Living in Knoxville.

Before I get into it, full disclosure...This is 100% an opinion piece; this is my sole opinion. I've not gathered info, taken a survey, or talked to anyone. Some of it might be from past conversations but I don't recollect any details so we're just going to go with my opinion

I moved here as a teen and I hated living in Tennessee for many years but over time I came to love living here. 

I love it still and in that spirit let's jump right into a pro about living in Knoxville and the first and biggest perk to living in Ktown is the cost of living. It is super cheap to live here. Compare to most of the country it’s one of the cheapest places you can live in. I don't wanna do too deep into the details because I'm going to do a cost of living video for Knoxville soon, but a quick example of what I’m talking about is in this graph which shows where Knoxville housing costs have moved over time and while this line above it is the national average.

I remember renting an apartment outside of San Diego about 16 years ago and a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, 1000 square foot apartment cost 1600 dollars. This year in 2019 you can get a 1500 square foot 3 bedroom house on a quarter-acre lot for that in a great area.

That brings me to the next perk about living in Knoxville Tennessee and that is a pretty good school system. 

We have 44 public schools and over 60 private schools as well as for colleges just in this area one of which is the famous University of Tennessee which was one of the best colleges in the US with a great architecture program and law school. And of course, a grade football program if you're into that which I'm really not.

Another good thing about living in Knoxville is traffic is never really that bad. if you live in a big city like Atlanta or New York or San Diego or LA you experience crazy bad bumper-to-bumper traffic jams that last for several hours. I know I've lived in Baltimore and San Diego and I've driven through Atlanta and other big cities. 

You could drive from one side of Knox county to the complete opposite side in the middle of a high-traffic hour and probably still make it in 30 minutes. it is very rare that you'll catch yourself and traffic that's so heavy it takes you more than an hour to get somewhere. But at least that's my experience and maybe I'm just a smarter driver than other people because I've heard people complain but these are also people that rarely leave East Tennessee so for them it is a frustrating situation.

Obviously another awesome part about living in Tennessee is nature. we have the Smoky mountain national Park and additionally, we have 12 National Parks and over 85 State and Local Parks for you to enjoy. There's great fishing, hiking, camping and for those of you that like that game where you hit the ball into the hole I think you call it golf there's tons of that around here as well. so if you're in haven't a lover of all things nature then Tennessee is a great place to live. You could spend the rest of your life and never fish in the same area and he's Tennessee. And of course, hunting is a big thing in this area as well.

So those are a few great reasons to live in Tennessee now let's talk about some things that aren't so great the kind section of this

The first place to start would be that Knoxville doesn't have a great public transportation system nor does it have a lot of sidewalks so it is necessary for you to own a car if you live in Knoxville. Now if you're a college student then you can get around on a bike but other than that you have to have a car. Even if you were a college student you'd still have to have a car if you wanted to go anywhere off campus because though we do have public transportation it only runs in the city and it doesn't run more frequently than every 45 minutes to an hour so it's not that convenient. Knoxville is building up a lot of greenways but they're still not a lot of sidewalks so unless you live in a specific neighborhood with sidewalks once you leave that neighborhood you're pretty much walking on the shoulder of the road and that's not safe for anyone.

Another negative for me about living in Tennessee, and this is probably going to get me in a lot of trouble for saying this but it's the University of Tennessee. everywhere you go you have this volunteer spirit and it gets super annoying because you can tell that a lot of people just do it and they're faking it. they're not that good of a team in my opinion but I'm not really into football so I don't really know. but yeah it gets pretty annoying everywhere you go it's Tennessee Vols. But it can be fun rooting for the opposite team and to get local fans riled up.

Another con for me about living in East Tennessee is it is super conservative. I am not a conservative person I'm pretty progressive, pretty liberal in fact about social issues, the economy and things like that so it can be annoying here in a lot of the conversations that you hear when you go places. But an awesome thing is Knoxville, the metro or city part of Knoxville, is progressive and mostly liberal-leaning. So it's a good little make sure and it's also pretty good to have conversations with people that are capable of having a mature and level debate without getting ugly or anything like that. because it's always good to hear what other people have to say on issues it's good to grow.

Another negative part of living in Tennessee is the weather. I like a good winter. And though you do you get cold weather in East Tennessee you rarely get snow and when it does snow it doesn't stick around very long and the summers are so hot here in Tennessee it can be torture. The nasty brutal summer in TN will have you indoors with the AC running at 60 degrees. You could also spend your time at the poolside if you have that ability. There’s not a ton of homes with in-ground pools in Tennessee but there are a lot of lakes and rivers to go swimming and you can always join a club with the money you save on rent or house payments.

So that's all I can think of with the negatives in Tennessee and more than likely I'll make another video in the future with some different things that come to mind.

I hope you enjoyed this post about the pros and cons of living in Knoxville Tennessee and if you have anything you'd like to add to the list feel free to comment by going to the video on YouTube or emailing me and I’ll add them to future videos on the subject. 

As always, if you ever need a real estate agent or have any questions about the local market feel free to call me or text me at the number provided. Be sure to create a free account here at bendreamhomes.com and use it as your go-to home search engine. 

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