These Are The 10 Most Affordable Places In Tennessee
From the Smoky Mountains to Graceland, Tennessee has a lot to offer, but which places provide the most affordable life?
We’ve written about Tennessee before on the Movoto Real Estate Blog, but one thing we know house hunters are concerned about is an area’s overall affordability. Knowing that, we decided to turn our ranking-making talents toward determining the most affordable places in the Volunteer State.
Despite being a large city, Memphis ended up being the best place to stretch your dollar. There were nine other places that stood out as being particularly cost friendly spots to call home. The top 10 most affordable places in Tennessee are:
1. City of Memphis
2. City of Millington
3. City of Germantown
3. Town of Arlington
5. Town of Collierville
6. City of Lakeland
7. City of Knoxville
8. Town of Farragut
9. City of Bristol
10. City of Manchester
If you’re looking for how places like Nashville or Chattanooga ranked, you can check the bottom of this article for a chart of our full list and rankings. If you’re an explanation of how we got these results, just read on and we’ll discuss our methods in the next section.
How We Created This Ranking
This isn’t our first Big Deal List for affordability, and this was done the same way as the others. First, we made a list of places in Tennessee with more than 10,000 people according to the 2010 U.S. Census, which came out to 56 different places. We then used Census data to rank each place in six different different places. We then used Census data to rank each place in six different categories:
- Food costs
- Utility costs
- Miscellaneous costs
- Median home price
- Unemployment rank
- Adjusted median income
We gave all 56 places a score from 1 to 56 in each criterion, with one being the best. We averaged those rankings together into one Big Deal Score, and the place with the lowest average was our No. 1.
Let’s look at that city and each place in our top 10 in a little more depth, and we’ll see why these are the best places for those on a tight budget.
1. Memphis
Who would have guessed that the largest city on our list would also end up being the No. 1 most affordable place overall? Memphis took home first prize for some very good reasons.
For starters, it was in a six-way tie for the miscellaneous cost of living, utilities costs, and food costs criteria. In the case of the miscellaneous cost of living index, that rank is No. 1. However, other scores here are decent, too.
The adjusted income rank was easily in the top half of the overall rankings, and the median home price was incredibly affordable at $98,300. If you’re looking for an inexpensive place to call home, this is definitely it.
What if you want to do something fun? Not to worry, as Memphis always has a ton of things going on, and many of them are pretty cheap. Memphis in May is a month-long festival featuring music from some pretty big bands, great food, cultural exhibits, and more. Many of the events have a low price tag and some are even free.
To read more, click here.
