Chattanooga features a wide variety of home styles, with something for everyone
Where you live says a lot about who you are
Fortunately, Chattanooga has enough housing stock to fit just about any lifestyle.
Urbanites and emptynesters may land in a sleek new condo in a repurposed downtown building. Dreamers may prefer to take a 2,000foot view of the landscape from a mountain-top escape. Adventure-seekers may want to live in a waterfront property where they’re only yards away from a day filled with jet skiing on the river. Meanwhile, parents of growing families may prefer the ample square footage and open floor plan of a “barndominium.”
The city’s livability is apparently a secret no more. In 2022, the latest year for which such numbers are available, Hamilton County was Tennessee’s fifth fastestgrowing county. The county grew by 5,655 residents, or a 1.5% increase, boosting the population to 374,682, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Knox, Rutherford, Montgomery and Wilson counties were the only Tennessee counties that are growing faster.
Gloria Page, a local real estate agent who has sold about 350 houses in the last 10 years, says a home inspector recently told her that almost half his clients were out-oftowners moving to southeast Tennessee.
“We appeal to the jocks and the geeks,” Page says. “The jocks because we have been voted ‘Best Outdoor City in America’ twice. We are also ‘Gig City’ for geeks, the gamers and those who work from home. We’ve also been voted best place to retire. We do not have a state income tax, and we don’t tax your pension.”
Each of those groups suggests a different checklist of needs in a home.
To showcase Chattanooga’s diversity of housing styles, we knocked on some doors and toured properties across the city. Some are occupied and some are not, but all represent different architectural and lifestyle choices.
To read about these individual properties, click the link below or pick up a copy of Chatter magazine at locations across the Chattanooga region.