"It's where I grew up, and we'd spent years happily raising our family there. We had a great community and liked our kids' schools - we only began thinking about leaving once my husband had to start commuting to downtown Los Angeles for work. It wasn't easy, and the appeal of a lower-cost, slower-paced life began to grow. We set our sights on Tennessee, where a lot of my husband's family lives."
"House hunting was our first sign that moving to Tennessee might not be the cost-saving solution we hoped it'd be. Though the average home in Tennessee costs less than half the average home in California, these are abstract data points that don't consider areas where our family wants to live and what we actually need in a home. In our experience, the housing market in the greater Nashville area didn't feel much different from our previous area in California."
After moving from Southern California to Tennessee to access family, reduce commuting, and lower costs, the family found expectations unmet. In desirable Nashville-area neighborhoods, housing prices felt similar to their former California neighborhood, and securing a home with needed features required compromises. Traffic congestion remained heavy, producing gas expenses comparable to those before the move even with lower fuel prices. Pay cuts and higher grocery taxes further reduced anticipated savings. The family missed their West Coast community and now faces the prospect of returning to the West Coast.
Read at Business Insider
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