Contemplating Moving to a More Free State

Nice! Please report back what you learn.
I think one of the biggest downsides with that area is trying to find something with 10+ acres. Most are fairly pricey. Need to go further out for that. If that isn’t critical than the area has a lot to offer.
We initially started looking BETWEEN Nashville and Knoxville and found exactly that. Zillow was a big help as it allows you to draw a circle around an area and put in parameters like price, acreage, house specs... Yes, I know there's a lot it CAN'T tell you, but if the average price of what you're looking for is say $300k on Zillow it's highly unlikely you're gonna find it for $200k. Kinda like finding 9mm at $11/box in a page of $30/box ads.

We found exactly what we wanted east of Knoxville. And I mean EXACTLY.
Yes but unfortunately the cities affect the towns and the less red the more likely things will be flipped sooner, at least in some area's.
True enough. But I'll happily take my chances in an unincorporated part of an already avowed 2a sanctuary County in a red state contemplating passing state-wide 2a sanctuary legislation.
I would move if I could get the Health Ins like we have here
Depending on industry and job, health insurance down here is just as good as up there. Cost is similar. I work for a large-ish Healthcare organization and if me or any of my family is hospitalized in one of our facilities (a dozen or so) it's free. Free, as in NO copay, NO deductible. Free. Surgery. Room. Meds. Anesthesia. Free. I'll earn 160 hours of PTO first year, I don't get time and a half on holidays. I'm 57. I'll take a free week of inpatient care for a few hours of holiday pay.
 
We’re waiting on the builder to get back with a dollar amount. They’re all straight out down there. Took about a month to find a soil tester last year, he was out of georgia.


Sold the house in Nov, closed at the end of Jan. Was the last house in a 5 house transaction, we were the only house without contingencies. Some potato out of roxbury bought it, sold his 3 decker. Sittin on a pile of cash (first-world problems) Wife made it very clear I’m not allowed to spend it on a machine gun. Such a fun-vacuum. Probably be here at my mothers till Aug if everything goes right.
Hopefully.

I'd get that machine gun on the down low
 
By the way, if you're looking at properties with one of those MLS crawling sites, we had bad luck with Zillow showing a TON of listings way out of date. Like several listings got us interested only to find they had sold two weeks prior. Redfin was the best: updates from the MLS every 15 minutes.
 
True enough. But I'll happily take my chances in an unincorporated part of an already avowed 2a sanctuary County in a red state contemplating passing state-wide 2a sanctuary legislation.
TN was at 60.72% on the election map that's why it's on my list. Nashville seems to be the only concern since they seem to have been invaded by hollywood more than elsewhere. Unfortunately I don't know if I can get out of here in time since I've still a lot to do and every-time I think I've made my decision I hear someplace else on my list does something that I like such as Utah and Missouri lately.
 
.has anyone thought the same? Where seems the most prosperous for a more free future? I am
Fairly young (30) and we don’t have plans for kids any time soon.
Yes. There are like 300 threads on this subject.

Go visit each place and decide. Decide what is important to you.

Do you need to be near a big city?
What type of industry do you need to be near?
Will you have kids? ... schools could be a big factor.

It is easy to say SC, TX or TN. They are big States, specially TX.

Define what you are looking for on each State.

For example, if you need to be near a city, north west SC right next to NC is nice and 15min from Charlotte and still has decent home prices.

Nashville is also nice, but it only has hotels and drunk women. Are you in the hotel industry?
 
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Or better yet, are you in the drunk women industry?

Seriously though, there might be a tad more opportunity Nashville. [laugh]

There really isn't much in Nashville besides restaurants, bars, hotels and a small baseball stadium. Its like 300 yards and the city ends.

There are some big companies near by like Deloitte.

Don't read this as a negative. I liked the area.
 
There really isn't much in Nashville besides restaurants, bars, hotels and a small baseball stadium. Its like 300 yards and the city ends.

There are some big companies near by like Deloitte.

Don't read this as a negative. I liked the area.

Nashville is retarded money.
Nice area, I will say that. Seems to be more geared towards tourism and Music City. And some strange fascination with Dolly Parton.
Wife started rattling off names of these companies as we were driving through Chattanooga. Places she dealt with while working for State Street. Your in finance, you'd probably recognize em.
 
Nice! Please report back what you learn.
I think one of the biggest downsides with that area is trying to find something with 10+ acres. Most are fairly pricey. Need to go further out for that. If that isn’t critical than the area has a lot to offer.
This is a new trend for this year. All the CA and NY crowd increased the demand. So builders are buying large tracks of land and building development community. I am okay with 1 acre with no HOA as we have rv`s and i would hate paying to park it at a storage . WHy 1 acre is the plan is in 5 yrs i will buy a large property with in a few hours as a play area. As we want good schools and some life , its hard to be in remote enough area with those.
 
My daughter and husband to be are in Tennessee right now. They got there in fourteen hours. They are having a ball there. They got a rippin deal on some cowboy boots per the recommendation of a friendly local they bumped into. Now they are at some huge aquarium that I believe is in Tennessee. The penguins have free roam of the place :)

Not reading the whole thread at this pint. I'm in eastern Tennessee, see my thread in off topic called Tennessee Chronicles for more.

We were in Chelmsford MA. I moved there having gone NJ (born/raised) to Indiana (1 year) to Arizona (Phoenix Valley for 8) to MA (12 years, divorced and remarried) to home in Jefferson County TN. For 1 1 1/2 years now. I'm 57, still working. Wife was born and raised and lived her entire life in MA until we moved.

Short (lol) list of reasons for TN and against pretty much everything else. NE is cold, so is the northern third of the country. West coast is brain dead. SW is hot, dusty, dry, and no longer speaks English. Texas IS flat, and not nearly as gun-friendly as people say. Read. Southeast gets hurricanes (so does Texas actually) and floods. And skeeters. East coast gets hurricanes, all the way up to NJ and NY. Midwest is flat and square. Think about why the states are squares. The bigger the cities, the liberal-er the state. And don't forget that pesky 200-mile zone where ALL the constitution isn't valid.

We looked for deep red, small-to-medium cities, good economy, low taxes, fairly moderate climate,low crime, rideable (m/c) roads, 2a friendly areas. We ended up with southern Kentucky, Western Carolinas, NW Georgia, northern Louisiana area. All had advantages and disadvantages, we'd never been to any.

Did more research,settked on Tennessee between Knoxville and Nashville. Came house hunting, looked at 8 houses in 2 days east of Knoxville. Bought a house in Jefferson County that trip, actually signing E-docs literally will boarding the plane. Almost got hollered at by the stewardess.

21 acres, 1200sq ft, 840sq ft detached shop, 150sq ft detached "she-shed". Full basement. $169k. Yup. $850/year taxes. Yup. Range is 15 feet from my walkout basement. Nearest neighbor is 1/4 mile away. Deer and turkeys constantly in my yard. 140 acre cow pasture across the street.

Moving here was the best decision I ever made. After marrying Lady Radtekk that is.

Oh, Jefferson County is a "2a sanctuary County" and there's talk of TN becoming a sanctuary state.

Nobody likes Biden much down here. My "Trump 2020, because liberalism is a mental disorder" t-shirt gets positive comments EVERY time I wear it.

ETA: In response to somebody, I think @76Too ?, but maybe not... My 19 y/o has driven from Manchester to me solo in about 14-15 hours a couple of times, 21 y/o makes it from Windermere FL (near Disney) in 11 or so, also solo. Lady Radtekk and I drove down from Chelmsford once, two easy days, leisurely driving, hour for lunch, etc.
Cookeville is one town we are visiting in 3 weeks. sounds its near where you describe it. We are visiting in 3 weeks to scout out. Same reason, more space, motorcycling [We as a family love motorcycles], camping, Overlanding [Just building a Jeep Rig with my 10 yr old] and atving [We do a few trips as a year as a family to do this].
 
By the way, if you're looking at properties with one of those MLS crawling sites, we had bad luck with Zillow showing a TON of listings way out of date. Like several listings got us interested only to find they had sold two weeks prior. Redfin was the best: updates from the MLS every 15 minutes.
The issue we had was that the market was so hot that ouses were selling days on the market.. I had a current list that I emailed my agent on Friday night of the houses we wanted to view. drove down Saturday and met with him Sunday morning to start looking at houses. 15 of the 30 houses we under contract in the 1 day.
The house we purchased was listed Sunday morning, my wife saw it while we were at lunch, begged for a viewing that day and had an offer accepted by 6pm. Wild times.
 
The issue we had was that the market was so hot that ouses were selling days on the market.. I had a current list that I emailed my agent on Friday night of the houses we wanted to view. drove down Saturday and met with him Sunday morning to start looking at houses. 15 of the 30 houses we under contract in the 1 day.
The house we purchased was listed Sunday morning, my wife saw it while we were at lunch, begged for a viewing that day and had an offer accepted by 6pm. Wild times.

Same here. We went to a two-hour open house only to be told there were four offers the day before and two during the past hour of open showings. This market must be hell for the agents on both buying and selling.

Once you have the search criteria dialed in on Redfin, you can just move slightly within the map and trigger a refresh, and any new listings pop up in a darker shade. I ended up rechecking my search on Redfin every 90 minutes for several weeks before finding our home.
 
Same here. We went to a two-hour open house only to be told there were four offers the day before and two during the past hour of open showings. This market must be hell for the agents on both buying and selling.

Once you have the search criteria dialed in on Redfin, you can just move slightly within the map and trigger a refresh, and any new listings pop up in a darker shade. I ended up rechecking my search on Redfin every 90 minutes for several weeks before finding our home.

Looking on Redfin for my area. They have 65 homes for sale (I have no filters on) Realtor.com has 962.
Redfin isn't showing the houses in the neighborhood that I know are still for sale.
 
Looking on Redfin for my area. They have 65 homes for sale (I have no filters on) Realtor.com has 962.
Redfin isn't showing the houses in the neighborhood that I know are still for sale.

Redfin has options to show or hide several statuses of property. By default it doesn't show "under contract" or "pending". Try flipping that.
 
I am fortunate enough to be in a situation where I could uproot my life and move. I have been heavily weighing this option over the past year with the way everything has shaken down. I know ultimately there is no escaping this new administration, but I envy seeing those that live in more conservative states for a variety of reasons.

my girl and I have talked about South Carolina. She likes it there and has always wanted to go. I am not too keen on the idea because I don’t know much about it there, I’ve been to Myrtle Beach once and I know it’s kind of prone to hurricanes.

I like Texas, but it’s flat and I hate how it seems that Californians are destined to ruin the state. Arizona seems cool, in certain areas. I love the idea of Colorado (although more blue, maybe not a good idea), Utah, or Wyoming. But again, I know nothing about the mountain region. The only part that sucks about that is I will usually like to visit the coast once a year, which wouldn’t be possible with a landlocked state.

has anyone thought the same? Where seems the most prosperous for a more free future? I am
Fairly young (30) and we don’t have plans for kids any time soon.
On the minus side, SC bans open carry. NC is open carry without a permit, 18 and over.
Murder Beach can be bad if you go to the wrong side. And police there arrest people for DWI on a bicycle. Same charge, same penalties as DWI in a car.
Over all, the Carolinas have a more moderate climate than Florida.
Neither north or south have any mag or gun bans. Suppressors are legal withing the NFA (that must be repealed or overturned)
When you go out on a 6 pack charter for Tuna you get to keep the tuna. I am told that is not the case going out of New England for tuna.
 
On the minus side, SC bans open carry. NC is open carry without a permit, 18 and over.
Murder Beach can be bad if you go to the wrong side. And police there arrest people for DWI on a bicycle. Same charge, same penalties as DWI in a car.
Over all, the Carolinas have a more moderate climate than Florida.
Neither north or south have any mag or gun bans. Suppressors are legal withing the NFA (that must be repealed or overturned)
When you go out on a 6 pack charter for Tuna you get to keep the tuna. I am told that is not the case going out of New England for tuna.

SC is working on open carry, will it pass this time...I hope so.

NC you need a carry permit or pistol purchase permit to buy handguns...SC you don't. SC bans teflon coated bullets though

There is no need to go to Myrtle beach, so that solves that problem
 
SC is working on open carry, will it pass this time...I hope so.

NC you need a carry permit or pistol purchase permit to buy handguns...SC you don't. SC bans teflon coated bullets though

There is no need to go to Myrtle beach, so that solves that problem
The PPP law is an old Jim Crow law. Irony? The NAACP loves Jim Crow laws and lobbies to keep them.
NC tried to get CC a few years ago. The Sheriff's association doesn't want to lose the cash, yet at the same time they claim the fees don't cover the cost of administering the permits.
Pooper got re-elected the same way Biden won. Fraud. No way people that voted for Trump voted for Pooper too.
 
Once we figured out where we want to be, I found a ton of data through a few State/city/county websites.
Some had more info than others, but I was able to pull up Plat/ Tax maps, G.I.S. maps for topographical grades and pitch, current yearly census data, demographics, hazard/ flood zone info, crime rate stats w/ breakdowns, unemployment rates, I think even the utility companies provided some kind of outage map that went back 3 years.

Do yourself a favor and do as much research as you can, and then do some more. Go down to wherever and hang out a few days, look past all the touristy stuff.
Figure out what you can live without, like a dunks (or equivalent) on every corner and.............................................people.
 
Wait until the baby alarm goes off on that bio-clock

Kids are not the burden that a lot of people complain about - you change your life for them but its because you want to.
 
SC Ranges, don't know what area you are looking, but there are some state run ranges spread out around the area.
And if you have a SC concealed weapons permit (CWP) you can go to NC. Basically, you can own, transport, purchase anything you want without the CWP, but you need the CWP to carry.
Figured I'd follow up on my own post with 1st hand experience with the SC ranges that I mentioned before.
I spent a few hours at one this morning. There are some FUDD rules.
Benchrest shooting rifles only.
No rapid fire (3 second count)
No 50 BMG
No incendiary rounds
No steel targets
No sandals (this one really upsets me)
No full auto.

Handgun range had some rules, nothing that jumped out at me. Except for the age. No one under 16 at pistol.

I talked to the range officer for a bit. He wasn't there to bust anyone. I asked if he cared about training firing from a holster. Didn't care as long as you are not sweeping anyone.

All in all, it's a free place for me to shoot. I like to shoot from bench anyways, but will end up finding another spot for other shooting positions.

100 yard rifle range had 5 positions
200 yard rifle range had 10 positions
25 yard pistol range had 5 positions
 
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