hey guys hope you're having a great day your buddy Tim back with another video and in this video we're going to do an update from one of the very first videos I ever recorded for this channel uh back a year ago and that is this video right here the pros and cons of living in Huntsville now that video has gotten I don't know 21 000 views or so so a lot of interest there so I got the thinking uh when I realized it had been almost a year have things changed should I update the list of pros and cons without the use of sticky notes like I did in that video because it was just a train wreck um so anyway yeah I thought uh let's do some updates I went back and I watched that video just to see what if anything had changed and some things had changed because a lot has happened here in North Alabama over the last year or so the market uh as you may well know just kind of went nuts we were at a 20-year load inventory really hyper competition hyper growth and all of that kind of combined to create this perfect storm that was the real estate market here last year but I want to look at things now a year later 2023 the pros and cons I wrote him down of living in north Alabama and not a whole lot has changed the pros and cons are still pretty much the same although with a few tweaks so let's talk about the the pros what are the pros of moving here to North Alabama the cost of living here is a major Pro because we are the fourth lowest state in the United States with the lowest cost of living yeah it costs uh what you will pay for housing food that sort of thing here is lower than you will in 40 other states so our cost of living here continues to be low and I think it will always be that way simply because of the economy here everything's that's going on here so our cost of living prices have not gone through the roof except for eggs and eggs are like gold everywhere so number one number one pro of living in north Alabama is we have the fourth lowest cost of living in the country number two property taxes I talk to folks moving here from uh New Jersey Arizona other places like that the property taxes are just through the roof our property taxes here in the state of Alabama 3.33 percent we are one of I think we're the second lowest in the entire country when it comes to property taxes and you can do something here that's called Homestead Homestead simply means if you buy a home and you live in it you can go down to the tax assessor's office and say hey this is my primary residence I'm going to Homestead this puppy and your uh property taxes are automatically cut in half if you are a senior if you are over I guess 65 is still uh senior holy crap I'm almost a senior holy uh yeah so the good news is when you are categorized as a senior here you're not going to pay any property taxes at all so that's a really good one so cost of living low property taxes number three sales tax again I hear all kinds of stories from folks moving here around the country about the high sales tax Alabama has a four percent sales tax again that makes us the 41st uh state in the country as far as sales tax goes I guess that would make us the ninth lowest if I did the reverse math now you will have we have a state sales tax we have a County sales taxes and City sales tax so here in Madison County when you take into account uh Huntsville City Madison County and the state I think our tax rate here is around eight percent sales tax but again still very low compared to the rest of the country so I got those taxes out of the way the next Pro is the growth we are experiencing unprecedented growth here in North Alabama thanks to our economy uh the job booms uh the job boom uh you've got companies here uh Facebook Google blue orange and Amazon not to mention every defense contractor on the planet we've got a very heavy uh NASA and Military presence here I also got a lot of manufacturing going on here now the automotive industry has discovered North Alabama so we've got Toyota we've got Hyundai so the growth opportunities for the economy here are uh are just amazing it keeps expanding and I will let you in on a little secret growth is also on the con list tell you about that in a second so the growth itself what happens uh is whenever an area grows like we are growing it expands the opportunity the opportunity for growth spills over into not only the housing the government the economy but also into business small and large and you know that's one of the things we talk about the city here itself and how we are at the top of just about every list in the country now that's also one of our Pros is the city itself you know uh we're in the top 10 places to raise a family top 10 places to start a business top 10 places to find a job we're on all of these we we actually made we were number seven on the top 10 spring break destinations uh recently I don't even get that one why why would anybody want to come here for spring break but apparently people do so a lot with that growth comes all of these opportunities for everyone for the people for the schools for the businesses for the economy so that is a good thing jobs job opportunities a big Pro if you go to indeed.com right now and just search on Huntsville Alabama you're going to get almost 14 000 jobs come up that's an enormous amount of jobs our employment rate here in the state of Alabama is one of the lowest in the country and it is especially low here in North Alabama so there are a lot of job opportunities abounding and you know because of the economy here we're very a very big engineering town as I said we've got NASA we've got the Army we've got every defense contractor we've got every tech company so our population here there's a lot of Engineers a lot of physicists a lot of scientists A lot of Executives and as such the average wage here is is much higher and so when you bring all of that to play we've got a very robust very diverse population or an economy here and it just continues to grow and grow and again a lot of the the jobs that are coming in of these thirteen thousand fourteen thousand jobs are going to be high paying technical jobs now it's not to say that you've got to be an engineer to make a good living here we also have a very robust program with the state on learning trades the state of Alabama if you want to be a welder you'll find somebody to to train you an electrician any of those trades like that and I think I saw some statistics that welding jobs start at 60 to 70 000 a year so when we talk about jobs it's not all engineering and of course whenever you've got the growth that we've got you've got a lot of support jobs support jobs being retail restaurants that sort of thing service jobs just a lot of opportunity here for for folks next on the pro list are schools uh North Alabama schools are among the best in the entire State some of our school systems are are at the tops uh 10 of schools around the country the Madison schools of course uh that is the big draw of Madison is the school system uh but we've also got a new technology high school year which is number one I believe in the state now so lots of schools and good schools and I'm not just talking about K-12 junior colleges trade schools colleges the University of Alabama school system if you want to get an education here you can do it there is no better place on Earth let's see what is the next Pro the next Pro is con and that is the weather now we talk a lot about the weather here but we don't do anything about it um you know this is Alabama this is the South we are going to have high heat and high humidity in the summertime and we are going to have moderate cold in the winter okay so summertime here you know temperatures are going to bump 95 100 and we have very high humidity so it's one of those things where you go outside you're gonna sweat you know and it's one of the things everybody's that's been to like Arizona you know well it's a dry heat in Arizona it's a very wet heat here so basically it's the difference between being in a sauna and an oven so I think I'll take the sauna because at least you perspire a little bit so the weather here year round is a a great climate like I said in the spring spring is beautiful here it's not too hot we have lots of greenery popping out summertime is hot it is hot it's Alabama it's going to be 95 to 100 it's going to be high humidity but it's great weather to get Outdoors we do a lot of outdoor activities here a lot of water sports a lot of Green Space we are about five hours north of the gulf so if you want to get away for a weekend and go to the beach you can do that I get asked a lot about tornado Tomatoes well we do have tornadoes here thankfully very rarely do we have devastating tornadoes major outbreaks but in the summertime primarily and sometimes others we do have tornadoes we don't have earthquakes we don't have a lot of forest fires we don't have Avalanches you got to have something and uh we we do have our share the good news is because of the uh the prevalence of tornadoes here sometimes uh the news folks the weather people do a fantastic job I mean man if there is a tornado eight states away the guys are on TV or doing wall-to-wall coverage so there's a lot of advanced notice seriously whenever we get bad weather here um I mentioned the outdoors big plus to a lot of folks like to get outside they like to hike uh we've got extensive waterways here we've got the Tennessee River Flint River but we've got a lot of lakes we've got uh Smith Lake we've got Guntersville a lot of opportunities to get Outdoors either on the water a lot of hiking trails a lot of Green Space a lot of people love that meat not so much I'm gonna stay at home or it's cool but if you like the outdoors canoeing skiing wrapping you name it you're going to find it here in North Alabama um talk a little bit about the proximity of where we are here in North Alabama north Alabama we are about an hour and a half south of Nashville which if you haven't been to Nashville by the way it's a great place to go love Nashville hour and a half south of Nashville an hour and a half north of Birmingham three hours from Atlanta five hours from the Gulf so where we are located here with our Interstate System excuse me you can get just to pretty much anywhere you want to go pretty quickly if you want to go to the beach if you want to go to the mountains Gatlinburg is about five hours away so the proximity here is uh is really well suited for those who want to go you know to just kind of travel around the southeast um let's talk a little bit about the home prices I should have led with this one because we are a real estate company by the way um home prices here are have not gone through the roof the prices have not fallen out the bottom though the average average home price here is in the 350 to 450 range the good news is property values here killer I mean the the increase in property values over the last couple of years has just been Stellar here we are seeing no let up okay we still have a low inventory and this is one of the cons you know we've been experiencing a 20-year low in inventory it's still a seller's market however the market has cooled enough thanks to interest rates and time of year that sellers are now willing to negotiate you can still get a great deal on a home and you are pretty much assured that your property values are going to continue going up so that's a big one as well I talked about the growth the expanding opportunities I think the last Pro really is our people now we're a very diverse population because we have such a big transient uh culture coming in you know we do a lot of relocation we've got I think the last stance I saw said that we've got about 5 000 people a month relocating to North Alabama so as you can guess uh it's it's a bit of a Melting Pot you know it's really unusual to see someone like me who's a native actually born and raised here because a big chunk of the population have moved here for work or school or whatever and again it creates a very diverse population I mean rarely do I hear anybody complain about the people here and even those that are not from here believe it or not are very friendly it's one of the funny things here in the South we're very polite you know if we're driving down the road and somebody's coming at us you know we'll say hey how you doing just lift the finger there I had a uh a client I think they were from New York or somewhere like that and he goes what's what's the deal with all these people waving at me do they think they know me and I'm like no we're just a very friendly group of folks so um so those are the prom the pros the prawns those are the pros let's talk about the cons now I mentioned a couple of these um the number one con is the hyper growth okay it's a it's a very big Pro but anytime you have the growth that we have had here in North Alabama there are certain challenges challenges not only the housing I mentioned that we're in a 20-year low in inventory the infrastructure the roads are trying to keep up with all the traffic all right um even the the City Utilities we're seeing sometimes that there's a little strain on those so anytime you have the kind of growth that we have had here in North Alabama you are going to have Growing Pains the good news is the powers that be here understand this and they are doing everything they can to get things caught up if you will so you're always going to have Growing Pains but that's better than having not growing pains right um mentioned the housing inventory again that is a big plus because the prices have remained solid the property values are up the inventory being low is is the con all right right now again we are at a 20-year low in inventory I did a video recently on uh how many homes are available in the average price range not many um a lot of homes for sale but not in that middle Sweet Spot there so the inventory continues to be a bit of a con um I think that's going to change as spring starts up we're going to see more homes come on the market we're going to see more buyers in the market even with the interest rates being what they are things are going to shake out and loosen up and increase so um uh con number three and I hear this one mostly from folks who were born here all this damn traffic the traffic now look anytime you have growth like we are having and you're having thousands of people move in here every month well chances are a lot of them are going to have cars and they're going to want to drive them on the road so you're going to have traffic now the good news is the average commute time here is about 18 minutes and so if you're from here that seems like forever but I've got clients who have moved here and I would say you know you're about 18 20 minutes away they're like I drive an hour and a half one way now so even though the traffic is a con to a lot of folks it's really not that bad um another con is we do have a kind of a lack of mass transit it's one of the the areas where I think the cities are are paying are playing catch-up is in the fact that we've never really needed a lot of mass transit here look Alabama north Alabama is spread out it's not like everything is conglomerated into one you know five square mile area it's really spread out you need a car if you live here and you know we have Uber we have the usual stuff but the mass transit the bus system here is a little lacking not going to lie to you it is being improved upon they're building a new bus terminal they have more buses on the way I think that's going to get better but for now if you are someone who relies on mass transit you're probably going to have a hard time living in north Alabama I talked about the weather it's a pro and a con it's a pro for folks who love to get outdoors and do things it's a con for people like me who sweat uh when it's 50 degrees again people ask about the tornadoes the weather we get as much rain as everybody else and occasionally we get a tornado and that's about all I can tell you about the weather finally the the last one that I want to talk about was a con last year but I don't think it's a con that much anymore and that is the lack of entertainment look I was born and raised here you know when I was a teenager some 40 odd years ago there wasn't a whole lot to do here there was nothing to do here you know they basically rolled the streets up at dark uh there was nothing open on Sunday except churches and barbecue joints uh there was really a lack of entertainment venues and things for young people to do and quite honestly I think that was a concern to the city fathers because if we're trying to recruit young people to come here to go to school or to work you got to give them something to do okay so for many years that was a problem well I'm happy to report that now there seems to be something new happening every weekend we not only have uh new restaurants New bars we've got all kinds of breweries but then we've also got like a Dave and Buster's and then we've got a main event and now we've have got the Orion Amphitheater we've got the Mars music hall we have all of these venues now that are are bringing great conscious Stevie Nicks James Taylor uh Allison Krauss Robert Plant just a lot of folks coming here for for music We have a thriving Comedy Club a great comedy club called Stand Up live and so there is uh always something to do now in north Alabama you don't have to gripe any more youngsters that you got nothing to do because if you can't find something to do at night in this town it's on you it's not on us so uh so there you go those are the pros and the cons of living in north Alabama in 2023 and again I think you'll see the the pros outweigh the cons now granted I'm biased people get on this channel and they go well he's a realtor of course he's going to be positive well yeah it's my it's smub but I'm also a lifelong resident I've been here 60 on years and uh you know I I can't imagine really living anywhere else because everything is uh is here I love the weather even though I bet you about the heat in the summertime um you know the the people are great the business climate is great uh there's really not a whole lot that I would consider a con and those things that I do well they're on that list so all right guys I hope that was helpful I hope you enjoyed the video if you like what we do here on the channel do me a favor give me a thumbs up click the like button click the little bell notification that way you never miss another video and if you are thinking about moving to North Alabama well we've got revolved Realty here almost a hundred agents now ready to go to work for you help you find your perfect home and if you are already here in North Alabama and you need the assistance of the fastest growing little independent Brokerage in town again that's us revolved Realty we would be more than happy to help all right that's it guys good afternoon make it a great day I hope you enjoyed the video and I'll talk to you soon bye