Many of the people I help buy here are not from here. The calls come from the big coastal and midwestern metros, from military bases, from a hospital that just made an offer, and they ask the same first questions: what does it really cost, where should we look, and can we do this without moving twice. This is the long answer. It is written for someone deciding, not someone already sold, so it includes the parts the brochures leave out.
- Nashville in numbers
- What it costs to live here
- Where people actually live
- Getting around
- Work and the economy
- The paperwork after you arrive
- Buying from out of state
- A 90-day timeline
- Questions
Nashville in numbers
Nashville is the capital of Tennessee and the center of a 14-county metro area that the Census Bureau put at about 2.2 million people in its 2025 estimate — the 35th-largest in the country, and one of the fastest-growing large metros of the last decade. Davidson County, which is the city itself (Nashville and the county are one consolidated government, “Metro”), is home to about 745,000 of them. The rest live in the ring of counties around it: Williamson to the south (Brentwood, Franklin, Nolensville), Rutherford to the southeast (Murfreesboro, Smyrna), Wilson to the east (Mt. Juliet, Lebanon), Sumner to the north (Hendersonville, Gallatin), and Cheatham, Robertson and Maury further out.
The climate is humid subtropical, which in practice means four real seasons with a long, hot summer. The National Weather Service’s 30-year normals put the average July high near 90°F and the average January low in the upper 20s; the city gets about 50 inches of rain a year, spread across every month, and a few inches of snow in a typical winter that usually melts within a day or two. Spring and fall are the seasons people move here for. Tornado season is real — spring and, increasingly, late fall — and a weather radio or a phone alert app is a normal part of life here, as it is across the mid-South.
Nashville International Airport (BNA) is about eight miles east of downtown and has grown into a hub-sized airport without a hub: more than 100 nonstop destinations as of 2026, including London and Dublin, and most domestic flights are under three hours. For a lot of the people I work with, the airport is the reason the move works at all.
What it costs to live here
Three numbers shape the budget more than anything else: income tax, sales tax and property tax.
- No state income tax. Tennessee taxes neither wages nor, since 2021, investment income. For someone arriving from California, New York, Illinois or Minnesota, that is often a mid-single-digit percentage raise on day one. Someone from Texas, Florida or Washington will not notice a difference.
- Sales tax is high. 9.75% in Davidson County since February 2025 (7% state, 2.25% local and a half-percent surcharge for the transit program voters approved in 2024), and 9.75% in Williamson County too. Groceries are taxed at a lower state rate (4%) plus the local rate. This is where the state makes up for the missing income tax.
- Property tax is moderate in the city and low in the suburbs. Tennessee assesses homes at 25% of appraised value and each county sets a rate per $100 of that. In most of Nashville the 2025–26 rate is $2.814, which works out to about $4,573 a year on a $650,000 home; in Brentwood the same home pays about $2,421 and in Franklin about $2,545 to $3,353 depending on the school district. The arithmetic, every county’s rate and a worked example are on the property tax page.
Home prices are the other half of the question, and they move every month, so I do not print a figure here that will be stale by the time you read it. The current numbers, from the MLS, live on the market page, which is replaced each month. The short version that has been true for several years: the city costs less than the coastal metros people arrive from and more than most of the Southeast; the suburbs to the south cost more than the city per home, and less per square foot. Homeowners insurance runs higher than the national average because of hail and wind, and a lender will ask whether a home is in a flood zone — some of the most desirable streets along the Cumberland and Richland Creek are — so that is a question to ask about any specific house.
Everyday costs are closer to the national average than the headlines suggest. Electricity (Nashville Electric Service) is TVA power and relatively cheap; water and sewer (Metro Water Services) and natural gas (Piedmont) are ordinary; internet is a choice among AT&T Fiber, Google Fiber and Xfinity in most of the city. Car insurance is above the national average. Restaurants and tickets are a big-city price now; groceries are not.
Where people actually live
Nashville is a city of neighborhoods separated by a river, a few interstates and a lot of hills, and the names matter more than the zip codes. The way I lay it out on a first call:
East Nashville
Across the Cumberland from downtown, 37206, 37207 and 37216: the bungalow streets of Lockeland Springs and Historic Edgefield, the restaurant rows at Five Points and along Gallatin Pike, the deeper lots and brick ranches of Inglewood and Eastwood to the north, and Shelby Park and Shelby Bottoms along the river. It is where most of my own work is, and the East Nashville guide breaks it into eight sub-neighborhoods with what each one is like.
Germantown, North Nashville and the river
North of downtown: Germantown’s brick rowhouses and new mid-rise condos around the farmers’ market and the Sounds’ ballpark, Salemtown and Buena Vista behind it, and the large River North and Oracle developments taking shape on the east bank. Walkable, close in, mostly newer construction or renovated originals.
West Nashville: Sylvan Park, The Nations, Charlotte Park, Bellevue
West of the interstate: Sylvan Park’s cottages and sidewalks near Richland Creek, The Nations’ grid of new tall-and-skinnies and converted warehouses, Charlotte Park and Hillwood further out, and Bellevue past the Harpeth River with larger lots and newer subdivisions. Belle Meade and Forest Hills, south of there, are the old-money estates and the highest prices inside the county.
South of downtown: 12 South, Belmont, Green Hills, Berry Hill, Wedgewood-Houston
12 South and the Belmont and Waverly-Belmont streets around it are the classic porch-and-sidewalk neighborhoods with a retail strip you walk to; Green Hills is the shopping and office hub with mid-century homes and condos; Wedgewood-Houston (“WeHo”) is the converted-industrial district with new apartments, galleries and the soccer stadium next door; Berry Hill is small and eclectic. Further south along Nolensville Pike and I-24 — Woodbine, Glencliff, Antioch — is where the city’s most affordable detached homes and much of its newest apartment stock are.
Donelson, Hermitage and Old Hickory
East of the airport and along Percy Priest Lake: mid-century ranches on big lots, newer subdivisions, the lake and the greenways, and some of the shortest drives to BNA in the city.
The suburbs
Brentwood and Franklin in Williamson County are the two most asked about, and they are different enough that I wrote a page comparing them with the city: Nashville vs. Franklin vs. Brentwood, with a short quiz that scores your answers. Nolensville, Spring Hill and Thompson’s Station are the newer, further-out Williamson County towns; Mt. Juliet and Hendersonville are the lake-side suburbs to the east and north; Murfreesboro, 35 miles southeast, is a university city of its own with the region’s most house for the money.
Coming from a specific city? The city-by-city guides match your neighborhoods to Nashville’s on the same rubric, one page per city: Moving from Los Angeles.
How I build a shortlist. Commute first (where, how often, and whether the hours are rush-hour hours), then budget, then the one or two things you will not give up — a yard, a walk to coffee, a garage, a single story. Three or four neighborhoods survive that, and that is what we tour. You do not need to know Nashville to start; you need to know yourselves.
Getting around
Nashville is a driving city, and the honest version of the commute question is that three interstates (I-24, I-40 and I-65) meet downtown and everyone uses them at the same time. Inside the loop, most trips are 10 to 20 minutes; a suburb-to-downtown commute is 25 to 45 minutes at peak, more from Spring Hill or Murfreesboro. Briley Parkway and Ellington Parkway are the useful shortcuts on the east side; Vietnam Veterans Parkway serves the north; Highway 100 and Highway 70 serve the west. Parking downtown is paid and scarce; parking in the neighborhoods is free and on the street.
Public transit is WeGo — buses radiating from downtown along the pikes, with more frequent service and the first dedicated bus lanes being built under the 2024 transit referendum (the half-cent sales tax above pays for it). It works best if you live along Gallatin, Nolensville, Murfreesboro, Charlotte or West End and work downtown. The WeGo Star commuter train runs from Lebanon and Mt. Juliet to downtown on weekdays. Nashville is bikeable in the neighborhoods and along the greenways (Shelby Bottoms, Richland Creek, Stones River) and not yet bikeable as a commute across town. Most households here have a car per adult, and I would plan on that.
Work and the economy
Health care is the largest industry — HCA Healthcare, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Ascension Saint Thomas and hundreds of companies that grew up around them make Nashville a national health-care management capital — followed by music and entertainment, hospitality and tourism, higher education (Vanderbilt, Belmont, Lipscomb, Tennessee State, Fisk, Meharry), state government, and a growing corporate and technology base: Amazon’s operations hub downtown, Oracle’s planned campus on the east bank, Nissan’s North American headquarters in Franklin, Bridgestone Americas downtown, AllianceBernstein downtown, and the automotive supply chain across the region. Many of the people who relocate here are nurses, physicians, music- and travel-industry people, and remote workers whose only requirement is the airport.
The paperwork after you arrive
- Driver license. New residents are expected to get a Tennessee license within 30 days of moving. Bring proof of identity, two proofs of Tennessee residency (a lease, a closing statement or a utility bill) and your out-of-state license to a Driver Services center; appointments shorten the wait.
- Vehicle registration. Done at the county clerk’s office (Davidson County has several branches) with the title or current registration and proof of residency. Tennessee ended emissions testing in 2022, so there is no inspection. Davidson County adds a county wheel tax on top of the state registration fee.
- Utilities. Electricity: Nashville Electric Service (NES) in Davidson County, Middle Tennessee Electric in Williamson, Wilson and Rutherford. Water and sewer: Metro Water Services in the city; the cities run their own in the suburbs. Gas: Piedmont Natural Gas. Trash and recycling are a Metro service inside the Urban Services District and a private contract in much of the rest of the county.
- Voter registration. Online through the Tennessee Secretary of State, or with the driver license application.
- Schools. Metro Nashville Public Schools serves Davidson County; Williamson County Schools and the Franklin Special School District serve Williamson; each district publishes a zoning lookup by address. If schools are part of the decision, look up the exact address before you write an offer, because zones do not follow neighborhood names.
- Homestead. There is no general homestead exemption to file for; tax relief and freeze programs exist for homeowners 65 and older and disabled homeowners, through the county trustee.
Buying from out of state — how it actually works
A good share of my buyers are not in Nashville when they start, and some are not in Nashville when they close. The process I use:
- The first call (30 minutes). Where you are coming from, why, when, what the budget is and who is in the household. I come back in writing with a shortlist of neighborhoods and what homes actually cost in each — numbers from the MLS, not a listing portal.
- Video before plane tickets. As homes come on the market I walk them for you on video — not the listing agent’s tour, mine, with the things a listing video leaves out: the street, the neighbors’ houses, the noise, the slope of the lot, the panel in the basement. You can rule out most of a list this way and fly in for the few that survive.
- One or two visit days. When there are three or four real candidates, we plan a visit day: back-to-back showings, the neighborhoods in between, lunch where you would actually eat. A written offer that weekend is normal; a second trip is sometimes worth it and often not.
- Inspection, appraisal and closing from a distance. I attend the inspection and send you the walk-through; the appraisal happens without you; the closing can be done by mail-away or with a mobile notary wherever you are, and the keys come to me until you land. Tennessee uses title companies and attorneys for closings, and either works remotely.
- The first week. Utilities switched before closing, a locksmith on day one if you want it, and the short list of people I use for the things a new house needs.
If you want to hear how I talk about the city before you talk to me, the segment below is from American Dream TV’s Nashville show.
