How to find a house in Knoxville, TN
Entry updated Dec. 1, 2008 at 4:13 p.m.
*Note: You can also read this entry on Knoxify.*
UPDATE: My wife and I closed on our house November 24!
Knoxville is an easy enough city in which to live. It's cheap, most folks are nice and life is generally relaxed. But whats it like finding a house in Sunsphere City?
My wife and I, being home-buying n00bs, had the chance to find out with our (fingers-crossed) recent find in Fountain City, just north of downtown Knoxville.
Knoxnews.com, the Web site of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, offers a well designed, innovative approach to finding a home for sale in Knoxville. The site allows you to filter listings based on your criteria, which automatically adjusts the map showing updated homes in a defined area.
Home-finding resources for Knoxville
I work for Scripps Interactive Group, which means I know more than enough about home listings available though the Web site of the Knoxville News-Sentinel. This online resource culls both multiple listing service (MLS) listings and newspaper classifieds into a site that's easy to use. I especially like the way that you can filter the listing criteria, which also adjusts the map display.
Another resource I used extensively was the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors' (KAAR) Internet Data Exchange Program. This complex name really denotes a basic listing application that pulls from the MLS database, and displays data similar to that of knoxnews' service.
I especially like the KAAR's interactive map, which displays available listings for the area of town you're looking at. Also useful is the ability to save your favorite listings, rate them, and write notes.
Unfortunately, as my wife and I learned the hard way, the available listings are always current. And they don't show whether an offer is pending on the house.
We used KAAR service as a starting point for drive-bys.
Other resources include Realtor Suzy Trotta, Zillow, print classifieds and driving around neighborhoods.
Here's how I rank the resources used:
- KAAR
- Realtor
- Driving around neighborhoods
- News-Sentinel
- Zillow
- Print classifieds
How to find a neighborhood
Knoxville's lack of established neighborhoods is probably its greatest flaw. Fortunately, there are a few great ones such as Sequoya Hills, Island Home, North Hills and Fountain City, all of which are located within bike-riding distance to downtown.
West Knoxville is home to mostly mindless subdivisions and new construction with little to no history or character. There are diamonds in the rough, but they're few and far between.
My definition of a great neighborhood means the following:
- Sidewalks or streets with little through traffic
- Walking distance to local eateries or other businesses
- Walking distance to parks
- Walking distance to schools
- Homes with distinct characteristics (not planned communities)
- Connections to other neighborhoods, not just isolated pockets of housing
- Historical significance (bonus)
Honestly, this was the hardest part of the home search because there aren't many resources available for researching Knoxville neighborhoods other than talking to long-time residents. Fortunately, our Realtor Suzy Trotta has compiled a number of neighborhood reviews on both her blog All Around K-Town, and the Knoxville-centric group blog Knoxify.
The real estate section of knoxnews also features a number of neighborhood descriptions.
Summary and other tips
If you're looking to find a house in Knoxville, here are the resources I'd recommend:
- Realtor: Suzy Trotta
- Mortgage lender: Kristin Abouelata
- Home inspection: Volunteer Home Inspections
- Listing service: KAAR IDX and knoxnews
- Neighborhood information: All Around KTown's Neighborhood of the Week and Knoxify Neighborhood Guide
If you want information about my experiences finding a home in Knoxville, or just have a question about any of the resources I mentioned, please post a comment or contact me directly.
Six comments
Neighbhorhood level data hmmmm.......
Very interesting......
Stay Tunes. Out
@Door Prize
So Frontdoor is thinking of entering the neighborhood data space? I must warn you, that's hard to do on a national level.
You need local folks on the ground collecting information, and forming relationships. Otherwise, you risk misrepresenting local, which just pisses people off.
Newspapers have the opportunity to do local well. Sites like Everyblock show that it can be done from the data side, while bloggers show what can be done from the narrative side.
Nice post. This is also pretty helpful:
http://www.kgis.org/KnoxNetwhere/viewer.asp
The search tool is powerful but not that user friendly. You can check ownership information, tax info, parcel size, previous owner etc etc
@Nate
That is pretty cool! Here is the information I was able to pull for the house we're getting.
Congrats on the house!
Hi,
I've found http://www.walkscore.com/ to be a pretty good resource for determining how "walkable" a neighborhood.
For instance we sold our house in the Cedar Bluff Road area which had a walk score of, I believe 6. No sidewalks, narrow road shoulders, and a long walk to most places you visit routinely.
We bought a new home in West Hills and our walk score improved to a 65 which http://www.walkscore.com/ rated as "somewhat walkable". Actually it's 5 minutes or less from 80% of the things we do on a regular basis, i.e. library, greenway, gym, lots of restaurants, drug stores, etc.
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