Margaret Slattery:
"Having It All at a Price
We Can Afford"

When contemplating a move from the San Francisco Bay Area to Knoxville two years ago, my husband and I compared job opportunities, housing costs, costs of living, and taxes. We discovered that East Tennessee gives us much more bang for our buck and allows us to afford the lifestyle we want.

Since my husband’s company has a plant in Oak Ridge, the job transition was fairly easy. I wanted to stay home with our young children for a while longer, but we also considered my future career opportunities and were impressed that HGTV headquarters were in Knoxville.

We read that the Economic Research Institute last year rated Knoxville No. 1 in the U.S. on its list of best places for recent college graduates to live and work, based on salary and cost-of-living data. Knoxville-area salaries are 8 percent below the national average, but the cost of living is 22 percent below the average.

And, we read that Forbes magazine last spring ranked Knoxville the fifth best city for business and careers, based on its colleges, cost of doing business, cost of living, crime rate, culture and leisure, and job growth.

In California we owned a starter home. When we looked at houses in Knoxville, we were thrilled that we could afford to move up. Coldwell Banker compared the cost of a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, 2,200 square foot house with a two-car across the country. The home in Knoxville costs $184,933, but in San Jose, CA, it costs $1,410,662!

We’ve found that our property taxes are currently about half what they were on the west coast, and our home is four times the size. California and Tennessee have high sales taxes, but California income tax is an additional 9.3 percent. You may not start with as much money in Tennessee, but you probably end the day with more money in your pocket.

In Knoxville, we have the job, house, and lifestyle that were out of our reach in the San Francisco Bay area. It’s nice to have it all at a price we can afford.