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When Dwight Merrick started thinking about where he wanted to live in retirement, he focused on three Cs: cost of living, community and climate. Florida, where he’d lived for more than four decades, ticked one of his key boxes — no state income tax — but he didn’t want to stay, due to his three Hs: “heat, humidity and hurricanes.”
The 67-year-old former insurance adjuster spent five years researching various locations, looking at other no-income-tax states like Nevada, South Dakota and Texas, but “Tennessee was the only one I really considered,” he says. “As far as the climate goes, Tennessee was a winner.” In November 2022, he moved to Fairfield Glade, a retirement community outside the small town of Crossville in the Cumberland Plateau.
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Low taxes were also high on Pam Weinel’s checklist when she retired from an East Coast nursing career in 2019. She and her husband, Nathan Richards, tried Las Vegas, but desert water shortages and the fact that Nathan, who still works, had to fly back east weekly made them reconsider.
They ultimately decided on Pegram, Tennessee, just west of Nashville, where they can enjoy both urban amenities and plenty of space. “We have a little more than five acres here,” on a wooded lot, Weinel, 67, says. “We’re only 25 minutes from downtown Nashville, but we can’t see our neighbors.”
Merrick and Weinel are hardly alone. Tennessee ranks among the top 10 states for drawing new residents ages 60 and older, according to a May 2024 study by financial site SmartAsset that analyzed U.S. Census data on retiree moves. Murfreesboro and Chattanooga were among the most popular cities for retirement moves.
“A lot are coming from California, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, even New York and New Jersey,” says Bill Britt, a sales representative at Exit Real Estate Experts in the Nashville area. “I think most people are leaving the harsh weather and cold winters to come move south because we have four seasons.”
Connie McNamara, a real estate agent with Knoxville Dream Homes, offers a similarly Midwest- and Northeast-centric list of states new arrivals are coming from, but adds, “I guess we also have to mention Florida.” She says some retirees who move to Florida from the north discover they don’t like the heat and humidity any more than the cold weather they left behind and settle in between, in Tennessee.
Merrick, the former Floridian, has observed this phenomenon firsthand. The locals even have a name for it.
“First time I was up here visiting four or five years ago, they said, ‘Oh, you’re gonna be a halfback.’ I went, ‘What are you talking about?’ ” he says. “Those are people that moved from the northeast down to Florida and then they figured out it’s too hot for them. They can’t even survive the summer down there. They move halfway back.”
Whichever direction you come from, here are five reasons to consider settling in the Volunteer State.
1. Low cost of living
Kiplinger Personal Finance ranks Tennessee as the second most tax-friendly state for retirees, citing its lack of state income taxes and low residential property taxes. (AARP's Tennessee tax guide has more information.) The effective real estate tax rate of 0.65 percent is 41 percent below the national average and lower than all but 12 states, according to a Motley Fool analysis of U.S. Census data.
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