Chattanooga City Limits vs Suburbs

[keithps]

Originally Posted by RiverView

I think the only exceptions here would be Signal and Lookout Cities. The rest are much less expensive.

Thats probably true, but Lookout and Signal cater to a more wealthy group of people, who probably aren't too concerned with the taxes.

[RiverView]

Originally Posted by keithps

Thats probably true, but Lookout and Signal cater to a more wealthy group of people, who probably aren't too concerned with the taxes.

I think Lookout has 2 garbage collections / week

[u4icmusic]

I think everybody, regardless of where you live, is concerned about taxes.

[adluna]

When we retired, we moved from the unincorporated county (Middle Valley) to inside the Chattanooga city limits. I was sick and tired of having to get in the car and drive a minimum of 10 miles to do *anything*, buy groceries, or any other shopping, restaurants, dry cleaners, go to a movie, museum, attend any cultural event. It was also near impossible to walk outside the subdivision because there was little on no shoulder on the county roads. Ditto for riding a bicycle and add to that, the hills. There may be parts of Soddy-Daisy or Ooltewah that are not that bad, but not by much. From either place, it's 20+ miles to go to the museums, theaters, etc. Do spend some time here before you make your decision and welcome to Chattanooga.

[An Einnseanair]

City taxes aren't quite double. The tax rates for Hamilton County are HERE, and the "Assessed Value" is 25% of the fair market value. If you live inside a city you pay both city and county taxes. So the annual tax bill for a $150k house would run $1037 in the county and $1903 inside Chattanooga if I did my math right.

But that extra cost also includes extra services. People in the county have to contract for garbage pick-up and fire, typically with a volunteer fire department instead of city-employed firemen. (we use Tri-Community Volunteer, which I believe is $100/year). If it snows the city will plow the roads much quicker than the county. There are more city police, so police protection in the city is typically better. So yeah, you'll pay $72 more in taxes per month, but the real cost is actually much less than that.

Also, be aware of the on-going annexation process (http://www.chattanooga.gov/annexation/annexation_info.htm - broken link) before paying a premium for a house just outside the city limits. Click on Urban Growth Plan for a map of the current phase of proposed annexations, and click on Growth Plan Map for the ultimate extents of the land-grab in the distant future.