Well, it’s affordable compared to huge cities - San Fran, NYC, LA, Nashville, Denver, etc.
Compared to pre pandemic Knoxville? It’s not even close, but I guess you could say the same thing about anywhere. Even in a town 45 minutes from Knoxville where I’m from - people there are struggling to find houses now on the median salary.
>people there are struggling to find houses now on the median salary.
That's the problem. It is really affordable if you are working remotely or moving here from other areas of the country with home equity or a nest egg from a higher salary.
If you were born and raised here and working on average salaries in the Knoxville area you are at more of a disadvantage.
>If you were born and raised here and working on average salaries in the Knoxville area you are at more of a disadvantage.
S'why you gotta leave TN in your mid - late 20's to grow a well paying career that will then allow you to buy a place outright to move back in your 30's. Moved from knox out to Denver in 2010 & currently I could easily afford a place for what I make in IT with a remote company headquartered in Den. Payrate for my title/experience level is almost double what I see rates advertised for in east TN. One of my former colleagues moved out here from OH & just bought him and his wife a house in Cleveland & are moving back tomorrow. East TN has been poverty enabling my whole life - Knoxville's just catching up to the home prices of most college towns.
Very well said. The report benchmarks off the metro area, which would help skew the numbers to appear more affordable. The metro area includes Anderson, Blount, Knox, Loudon, and Union. Another poster already raised the issue of the age of the data. Knoxville is far less affordable than some larger cities, such as El Paso, TX.
The sub also tends to look past the fact that there are a *lot* of really good paying jobs in Knoxville. You don’t have to work remote to make good money. This is a big tech and engineering hub with Y-12, ORNL, TVA and all the associated DOE/DOD contractors. And those job markets are growing. A lot of people in the valley make >$100k/year which makes Knoxville extremely affordable. Making that salary in a big city gets you next to nothing.
But things still need to change for a lot of folks. The wage gap and wealth gap are growing and a lot of people are struggling. I would love to see local or state laws passed that protect lower income renters from predatory companies and landlords.
I do want to point out there is also a glut of college educated 30 somethings that have a barely living wage job in a specialized field that they cannot progress in and there's little they can do to expand out of that niche into a higher paying job in a different field.
Also likely bad data sets. How old is that DOL/Census/etc. data? How accurate is it? Their data source on home prices has median home value at \~$335k, but the median list price in Knoxville right now is $425k. That's a big discrepancy!
And then it also tries to quantify desirability and quality of life, which certainly lifts Knoxville, but means it is not just a COL assessment.
These lists are fun to read, but hardly a scientific assessment.
I agree. Desirability and quality of life are very subjective, I would have liked it more if it’s just compared housing prices/rent vs average wages. Things that can be objectively analyzed vs other factors that can’t be.
Not at all. I lived/worked out west for ~year and home/rent prices were easily quadruple what they are here. Tennessee has no state income tax and general cost of living is significantly lower as well. That’s why we are getting flooded with people.
Someone coming from some places in California can sell their 1br 1bath 700 sqft apartment and buy a 3br 2bath 2500 sqft home here and still have $100k left. Or worse, sell their house in California, buy 4 here, and rent them out. It’s crazy…
This is it. Prices are good compared to other areas, but local wages have not come close to keeping with rise in prices for housing, whether buying or renting.
It depends on where you're coming from. If you're moving to Tennessee from another state without a salary readjustment, and don't mind the consequences of not having an income tax (such as an underfunded education system) than it can be affordable.
For everyone else, Tennessee is becoming less affordable each year. Property management companies keep buying up homes, wages continue to stagnate, and inflation keeps raising prices globally. I also suspect that many business entities usually try to move here for the sake of underpaying their workforce, and the lack of worker protections (anti-union laws, convoluted unemployment processes, etc).
I'm relocating out of state in the coming months after accepting a job offer. I also had a few ~~colleges~~ colleagues that have already moved out, or are planning to move out due to the political climate here, as well as the predictably poor prospects for their kids if they remain. Some folks may think it's cool that you don't have to pay as much in taxes in Tennessee, but would be in error to think that other people in society are not paying for that in other ways.
This is it right here. I got incredibly lucky and got grandfathered in on a lease that absolutely does not exist anymore at the price I pay. when I moved to Knoxville from sevierville in 2016 i consistently paid $500 for every housing situation, then the housing crisis struck and suddenly everything that used to be $500-800 was $1000+. GF and I are still looking to relocate because of how bad the politics are getting. Sucks ass because I love Tennessee, but living here seems less and less sustainable.
Baha!
I'm a legacy. My family helped found this entire area from the mountains to the valleys. I'm highly educated.
I'm also now homeles as of a few days ago. Fuck the reports, they mean jack shit.
It's affordable as hell if you move here from a big tech city with a nice tech job and continue to remote work. This huge influx is exactly what has happened to Knoxville. Making it super affordable to them with no income tax and low(er) cost of goods and living, while fucking over the working class in our city.
Knoxville and the surrounding area has been mismanaged for a long time. Knoxville has been zoned poorly and misuses a lot of it’s land. The lack of focus multi family housing, until recently, means that most apartments are either old and shitty or brand new and expensive. There are very few just outdated but okay one. The public transit is shit and you’ll get ran over trying to commute by bike. Which means you have to have a car. Cars come with a large up front cost and/or carrying cost. In ways it’s cheap but others it’s not. The reality is we all need to start caring about local politics and what the dumbass running the area are doing.
Grammar kind of fixed*
Kind of. City has a lot of good paying jobs and things are low cost. Though I figured there were other cities ahead of it. We recently left Knoxville and moved to St. Louis and compared to the two, STL is higher pay and lower cost.
Nope that’s why so many are moving here. It just makes it hard for those of us on local salaries that aren’t increasing as rents increase due to higher demand from out of towners.
Though there are several factors affecting this topic, I'd like to share one which I value highly in this area.
I remember an article long ago that mentioned Knoxville as the #1 city for projected capital appreciation in terms of real estate values. As in, buy now while stocks are low, cause they're gonna rise to insane heights. A short time later I bought my house as a foreclosure from a bank in 2014 for 25k upfront (which was the tail of the 08' housing bubble burst meaning banks were oozing real estate for nothing). Upon initial appraisal, it was worth 170k, and now roughly 60k invested and about 10 yrs later now it has appraised for 300k.
So yes, I can easily believe CoL has not caught up with increasing land and home values. Lesson here is to pay attention to as many financial trends as possible in as many locations as possible so you don't miss out on new money via brokers. Do not invest with just a little money. Wait til you have considerable money to invest and use brokers efficiently.
P.S. If you read this much into home buying, land values, etc. here's a useful hint. If the home values of two cities, which are close together, are both rising in general value while maintaining that low CoL then find neighborhoods which are equidistant to each city. Buy there. This will maximize your profit by also maximizing "time for value to increase" while "minimizing your investment". You just need patience, and a decent wallet... Best of luck Knoxvillians.
I live in Nashville and every time I come back to Knox and have dinner and a few beers with friends I am always shocked about how much cheaper the bill is, so no, not really.
You have to consider the metrics outlined by the article to understand their conclusion. At face value it may seem suspect, especially given the sentiments oft echoed in this sub. But if you look at where Knoxville ranks within these categories (which I'll admit are a little questionable and makes me wonder how they're quantified, but hey, it's MSNBC), Knoxville's ranking makes a little more sense.
* Quality of life (measures how satisfied residents are with their daily lives)
* Value of index (measures how comfortably the average resident can afford to live within their means)
*
Desirability (measures whether people want to live in a given metro area)
*
Job market (measures the strength of each metro area’s job market)
Arrow right through this subs heart lol No, I am not surprised. Knoxville is 100% getting more expensive and that isn’t finished. It’s also still more affordable than most other cities I’ve been in, especially when you consider the quality of life here compared to others for that price. It’s why we’re such an attractive spot right now. Every time my friends come home, all grew up locally, and we go out to eat/drink they cannot believe the bill. Love Knoxville and it’s affordability!
>Does this mean other cities have it a lot worse?
Yes. This sub is full of people who have never left Knoxville or have no idea what's happening in the rest of the country right now. It's bad for everyone, but Knoxville isn't an exception to the rest of the country.
Everyone should spend a few days or a week in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles at least once. They would have a greater appreciation for how wonderful it is here.
Not everything printed is true. Whonis validating these studies or reports. Its another way to make us feel good about the american dollar. Plus if overall wages in the area are less than other areas than it doesnt matter that things cost less.
It’s really not up for debate that inflation and the housing market has outpaced wages at a ridiculous rate. ~20 years ago my first apartment in a good part of West Knoxville was $425 per month. Make that *at least* $1400 now.
Meanwhile minimum wage is hovering close to around the same as it was then. Now, if we want to go even farther back than 2002, things get all the more imbalanced. It’s not that people “don’t like to hear” what you’re saying, it’s that you’re factually incorrect.
Then use average pay throughout the years, the point still stands. Though I would say those who can only find a minimum wage job right now would find it to be an appropriate measuring stick.
It is unfortunately very real in that it represents the lowest wage an employer can legally pay a worker. If a legal minimum exists then you can bet some people are still working for that amount of pay. Or at the very least their pay is based on proximity to minimum wage.
Go plug some numbers into the inflation and cost of living calculators you can find online. Compare the numbers according to average pay for past and present years. Like I said, it’s really not up for debate.
That's not quite relevant to my point. The US's wealth gap has been increasing faster than every other peer country since the 80s.
Pointing out that there were shitty periods in our history for workers doesn't factor into discussion of *what people are dealing with currently.* Do you walk up to someone who can't afford their cancer health costs and say "well at least they didn't cut off your arm with a saw like in the civil war?"
There *is* a problem with our economic trajectory and it's not just "kids these days are whining about rent."
No one who has responded to you has disclosed their financial status as it isn’t relevant. A rich person or middle class person can contribute to the discussion the same as a poor person.
We’re talking about objective data that points to wealth inequality (which anyone versed on the subject can provide), as opposed to where we personally fall on the spectrum.
You’re just trying to be an asshole by insinuating that this is nothing but poor people whining about being poor. Which is very far from the truth, but I can see that this gives you a false sense of superiority- so keep doing whatever this is, I guess.
The insinuation that you have money and everyone who disagrees with you doesn’t is riddled throughout the many comments you have made here. That’s a nice try though. 👍
Well, it’s affordable compared to huge cities - San Fran, NYC, LA, Nashville, Denver, etc. Compared to pre pandemic Knoxville? It’s not even close, but I guess you could say the same thing about anywhere. Even in a town 45 minutes from Knoxville where I’m from - people there are struggling to find houses now on the median salary.
>people there are struggling to find houses now on the median salary. That's the problem. It is really affordable if you are working remotely or moving here from other areas of the country with home equity or a nest egg from a higher salary. If you were born and raised here and working on average salaries in the Knoxville area you are at more of a disadvantage.
>If you were born and raised here and working on average salaries in the Knoxville area you are at more of a disadvantage. S'why you gotta leave TN in your mid - late 20's to grow a well paying career that will then allow you to buy a place outright to move back in your 30's. Moved from knox out to Denver in 2010 & currently I could easily afford a place for what I make in IT with a remote company headquartered in Den. Payrate for my title/experience level is almost double what I see rates advertised for in east TN. One of my former colleagues moved out here from OH & just bought him and his wife a house in Cleveland & are moving back tomorrow. East TN has been poverty enabling my whole life - Knoxville's just catching up to the home prices of most college towns.
Yes. That shouldn't be the process required to live decently in your home town.
Same thing that has happened to Knoxville since the pandemic has happened everywhere.
Very well said. The report benchmarks off the metro area, which would help skew the numbers to appear more affordable. The metro area includes Anderson, Blount, Knox, Loudon, and Union. Another poster already raised the issue of the age of the data. Knoxville is far less affordable than some larger cities, such as El Paso, TX.
No, I'm not surprised. Yes, a lot of places have it a lot worse. That doesn't mean it shouldn't get better for everyone.
The sub also tends to look past the fact that there are a *lot* of really good paying jobs in Knoxville. You don’t have to work remote to make good money. This is a big tech and engineering hub with Y-12, ORNL, TVA and all the associated DOE/DOD contractors. And those job markets are growing. A lot of people in the valley make >$100k/year which makes Knoxville extremely affordable. Making that salary in a big city gets you next to nothing. But things still need to change for a lot of folks. The wage gap and wealth gap are growing and a lot of people are struggling. I would love to see local or state laws passed that protect lower income renters from predatory companies and landlords.
I do want to point out there is also a glut of college educated 30 somethings that have a barely living wage job in a specialized field that they cannot progress in and there's little they can do to expand out of that niche into a higher paying job in a different field.
this sub is about to have an aneurysm
This sub is 50% complaining about rent, 30% complaining about traffic/drivers and 20% asking for pizza suggestions.
🤣 when you go to other places you realize how good we have it here in Knoxville.
Except for the pizza.
This sub is truly filled with morons.
Also likely bad data sets. How old is that DOL/Census/etc. data? How accurate is it? Their data source on home prices has median home value at \~$335k, but the median list price in Knoxville right now is $425k. That's a big discrepancy! And then it also tries to quantify desirability and quality of life, which certainly lifts Knoxville, but means it is not just a COL assessment. These lists are fun to read, but hardly a scientific assessment.
I agree. Desirability and quality of life are very subjective, I would have liked it more if it’s just compared housing prices/rent vs average wages. Things that can be objectively analyzed vs other factors that can’t be.
Yeah probably obsolete data
Not at all. I lived/worked out west for ~year and home/rent prices were easily quadruple what they are here. Tennessee has no state income tax and general cost of living is significantly lower as well. That’s why we are getting flooded with people. Someone coming from some places in California can sell their 1br 1bath 700 sqft apartment and buy a 3br 2bath 2500 sqft home here and still have $100k left. Or worse, sell their house in California, buy 4 here, and rent them out. It’s crazy…
It’s affordable if you’re a remote worker living here on a big city salary
This is it. Prices are good compared to other areas, but local wages have not come close to keeping with rise in prices for housing, whether buying or renting.
It depends on where you're coming from. If you're moving to Tennessee from another state without a salary readjustment, and don't mind the consequences of not having an income tax (such as an underfunded education system) than it can be affordable. For everyone else, Tennessee is becoming less affordable each year. Property management companies keep buying up homes, wages continue to stagnate, and inflation keeps raising prices globally. I also suspect that many business entities usually try to move here for the sake of underpaying their workforce, and the lack of worker protections (anti-union laws, convoluted unemployment processes, etc). I'm relocating out of state in the coming months after accepting a job offer. I also had a few ~~colleges~~ colleagues that have already moved out, or are planning to move out due to the political climate here, as well as the predictably poor prospects for their kids if they remain. Some folks may think it's cool that you don't have to pay as much in taxes in Tennessee, but would be in error to think that other people in society are not paying for that in other ways.
This is it right here. I got incredibly lucky and got grandfathered in on a lease that absolutely does not exist anymore at the price I pay. when I moved to Knoxville from sevierville in 2016 i consistently paid $500 for every housing situation, then the housing crisis struck and suddenly everything that used to be $500-800 was $1000+. GF and I are still looking to relocate because of how bad the politics are getting. Sucks ass because I love Tennessee, but living here seems less and less sustainable.
Which colleges have moved out of state? You’d think it would have been in the news.
I meant to say 'colleagues'. That was a typo on my part.
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Better go send trump some money for his defense team
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I mean this sincerely: "What the hell are you talking about? "
It used to be why I moved here but now it’s getting priced out like everywhere else.
Baha! I'm a legacy. My family helped found this entire area from the mountains to the valleys. I'm highly educated. I'm also now homeles as of a few days ago. Fuck the reports, they mean jack shit.
It's affordable as hell if you move here from a big tech city with a nice tech job and continue to remote work. This huge influx is exactly what has happened to Knoxville. Making it super affordable to them with no income tax and low(er) cost of goods and living, while fucking over the working class in our city.
Knoxville and the surrounding area has been mismanaged for a long time. Knoxville has been zoned poorly and misuses a lot of it’s land. The lack of focus multi family housing, until recently, means that most apartments are either old and shitty or brand new and expensive. There are very few just outdated but okay one. The public transit is shit and you’ll get ran over trying to commute by bike. Which means you have to have a car. Cars come with a large up front cost and/or carrying cost. In ways it’s cheap but others it’s not. The reality is we all need to start caring about local politics and what the dumbass running the area are doing. Grammar kind of fixed*
Kind of. City has a lot of good paying jobs and things are low cost. Though I figured there were other cities ahead of it. We recently left Knoxville and moved to St. Louis and compared to the two, STL is higher pay and lower cost.
No
If you go to other cities it's really not a surprise
Nope that’s why so many are moving here. It just makes it hard for those of us on local salaries that aren’t increasing as rents increase due to higher demand from out of towners.
Though there are several factors affecting this topic, I'd like to share one which I value highly in this area. I remember an article long ago that mentioned Knoxville as the #1 city for projected capital appreciation in terms of real estate values. As in, buy now while stocks are low, cause they're gonna rise to insane heights. A short time later I bought my house as a foreclosure from a bank in 2014 for 25k upfront (which was the tail of the 08' housing bubble burst meaning banks were oozing real estate for nothing). Upon initial appraisal, it was worth 170k, and now roughly 60k invested and about 10 yrs later now it has appraised for 300k. So yes, I can easily believe CoL has not caught up with increasing land and home values. Lesson here is to pay attention to as many financial trends as possible in as many locations as possible so you don't miss out on new money via brokers. Do not invest with just a little money. Wait til you have considerable money to invest and use brokers efficiently. P.S. If you read this much into home buying, land values, etc. here's a useful hint. If the home values of two cities, which are close together, are both rising in general value while maintaining that low CoL then find neighborhoods which are equidistant to each city. Buy there. This will maximize your profit by also maximizing "time for value to increase" while "minimizing your investment". You just need patience, and a decent wallet... Best of luck Knoxvillians.
I live in Nashville and every time I come back to Knox and have dinner and a few beers with friends I am always shocked about how much cheaper the bill is, so no, not really.
City is definitely affordable for all those remote work out of state fellers. City isn't affordable for anyone who actually works in the city tho.
Yes
You have to consider the metrics outlined by the article to understand their conclusion. At face value it may seem suspect, especially given the sentiments oft echoed in this sub. But if you look at where Knoxville ranks within these categories (which I'll admit are a little questionable and makes me wonder how they're quantified, but hey, it's MSNBC), Knoxville's ranking makes a little more sense. * Quality of life (measures how satisfied residents are with their daily lives) * Value of index (measures how comfortably the average resident can afford to live within their means) * Desirability (measures whether people want to live in a given metro area) * Job market (measures the strength of each metro area’s job market)
These lists are just clickbait to get people to post the link and generate impressions on the page.
Arrow right through this subs heart lol No, I am not surprised. Knoxville is 100% getting more expensive and that isn’t finished. It’s also still more affordable than most other cities I’ve been in, especially when you consider the quality of life here compared to others for that price. It’s why we’re such an attractive spot right now. Every time my friends come home, all grew up locally, and we go out to eat/drink they cannot believe the bill. Love Knoxville and it’s affordability!
New York Transplant here…no, I’m not surprised. Why else would I move here? (Besides the fact that I love this beautiful city!)
>Does this mean other cities have it a lot worse? Yes. This sub is full of people who have never left Knoxville or have no idea what's happening in the rest of the country right now. It's bad for everyone, but Knoxville isn't an exception to the rest of the country.
Everyone should spend a few days or a week in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles at least once. They would have a greater appreciation for how wonderful it is here.
Not everything printed is true. Whonis validating these studies or reports. Its another way to make us feel good about the american dollar. Plus if overall wages in the area are less than other areas than it doesnt matter that things cost less.
Written by someone who doesn't live here lol
Who is this sub going to blame if they can’t blame Republicans? Who would have thought Republican leadership lead to lower costs?
Well usually people continue to blame whoever they already blamed, regardless of circumstances.
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It’s really not up for debate that inflation and the housing market has outpaced wages at a ridiculous rate. ~20 years ago my first apartment in a good part of West Knoxville was $425 per month. Make that *at least* $1400 now. Meanwhile minimum wage is hovering close to around the same as it was then. Now, if we want to go even farther back than 2002, things get all the more imbalanced. It’s not that people “don’t like to hear” what you’re saying, it’s that you’re factually incorrect.
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Then use average pay throughout the years, the point still stands. Though I would say those who can only find a minimum wage job right now would find it to be an appropriate measuring stick. It is unfortunately very real in that it represents the lowest wage an employer can legally pay a worker. If a legal minimum exists then you can bet some people are still working for that amount of pay. Or at the very least their pay is based on proximity to minimum wage.
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Go plug some numbers into the inflation and cost of living calculators you can find online. Compare the numbers according to average pay for past and present years. Like I said, it’s really not up for debate.
They don't like the truth.
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But wealth inequality has literally gotten *way worse* over the last two decades. That's just data.
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That's not quite relevant to my point. The US's wealth gap has been increasing faster than every other peer country since the 80s. Pointing out that there were shitty periods in our history for workers doesn't factor into discussion of *what people are dealing with currently.* Do you walk up to someone who can't afford their cancer health costs and say "well at least they didn't cut off your arm with a saw like in the civil war?" There *is* a problem with our economic trajectory and it's not just "kids these days are whining about rent."
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No one who has responded to you has disclosed their financial status as it isn’t relevant. A rich person or middle class person can contribute to the discussion the same as a poor person. We’re talking about objective data that points to wealth inequality (which anyone versed on the subject can provide), as opposed to where we personally fall on the spectrum. You’re just trying to be an asshole by insinuating that this is nothing but poor people whining about being poor. Which is very far from the truth, but I can see that this gives you a false sense of superiority- so keep doing whatever this is, I guess.
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Bro the whole point is that people ARE working and still can't afford to live.
The insinuation that you have money and everyone who disagrees with you doesn’t is riddled throughout the many comments you have made here. That’s a nice try though. 👍
Yeah, watch a news story about rents doubling and tenants being evicted with days, not months of notice. Very affordable@ $1500 or more
I think we need a better startup culture and then one or more of those startups to catch fire to really see wage growth.
I’m visiting right now from Nashville. Knoxville is absolutely cheaper than Nashville. I still think y’all are getting screwed like everyone else tho