Coming Home to Franklin

01 The pull

Why families like yours are choosing Franklin

Almost everyone who calls me is chasing the same thing, even if they say it differently: a little more room, a little more life, and the sense that their kids can just… be outside.

Franklin gives you that without asking you to give up the things a big career needs. You can watch both kids' games in one evening and still make a 7 a.m. flight the next morning. You can put in an offer on land where the streetlights are the only thing that calls the kids home for dinner — and be at a world-class restaurant, or the airport, in half an hour. The families who move here from California, Chicago, and New York aren't downsizing their lives. They're trading congestion and cost for space, community, and time.

You can be thirty minutes away and have your perfect slice of America.

That line is the whole thesis, and I mean it. Franklin is the quintessential Southern town — a real Main Street, real seasons, real neighbors — with a major metro thirty minutes up the road. For a lot of families I work with, that drive into Nashville is shorter than the crawl they used to make across their old city. What surprises them most isn't the tax savings (though we'll get to that). It's how quickly it starts to feel like home.

02 The momentum

A town on the rise

There's a reason the moving trucks all seem pointed the same direction. Franklin isn't just charming — it's one of the most economically dynamic places in the country right now. And when you're buying, that matters more than people realize.

Over the last decade, Williamson County has become a genuine magnet for corporate headquarters — companies leaving California, New York, and Illinois for the same reasons families are. Nissan North America, Mars Petcare, Community Health Systems, Ramsey Solutions, Mitsubishi Motors North America, CKE Restaurants, and Jackson National all call the county home, and Spirit Airlines moved its operations control center here. The draw is consistent: no state income tax, a genuinely business-friendly climate, an educated workforce, and a quality of life that makes recruiting easy.

What that means for you is simple: this is demand with real gravity behind it, not a fad. Executives relocating for these jobs are looking for exactly the homes and land you're looking at — which is what keeps this one of the most resilient luxury markets in the Southeast. You're buying into momentum, not betting on it.

And the pipeline keeps filling. Even In-N-Out Burger chose Franklin for a $125.5 million Eastern hub, opening by 2026. What's striking is how disciplined the growth is — Franklin guards its historic core fiercely, which is exactly why the values hold. Growth without character erodes a place; growth with it compounds.

03 The numbers

The move math — what it actually saves you

Let's start where you're already doing the arithmetic: the money.

Tennessee has no state income tax. None. The tax on interest and dividends was fully phased out in 2021, so for a high earner leaving California, Illinois, or New York, this is the single biggest line on the page — often six figures a year that simply stops leaving your account. Property taxes are among the lowest in the country, too: Williamson County's effective rate runs around half a percent, and out on unincorporated acreage it can be lower still. The 2026 county rate is $1.30 per $100 of assessed value, and Tennessee assesses homes at just 25% of their appraised value — which is why the bill on a beautiful place here often stuns people used to the coasts.

The honest caveat: if you're buying up — trading a $3M home for a $5M estate — your property-tax dollars may rise even as the rate falls. The income-tax savings almost always dwarf that. But you should see it on your own numbers, not mine.

Estimates only, not tax advice — the calculator uses current brackets and typical rates. For the real picture, talk to a CPA (I'll introduce you to one who knows the multi-state move cold).

04 The map

Choosing your part of Williamson County

"Franklin" is really a dozen very different lives, and the biggest early mistake is shopping the whole county as if it's one place.

On one end you have Leiper's Fork — horse farms, galleries, and front-porch music, on unrestricted acreage where privacy is the point. College Grove splits into two worlds: gated golf communities like The Grove and Troubadour, and open farmland. Arrington is wine-and-horse country. Then there's downtown and central Franklin, walkable and historic; Brentwood, the established, leafy, close-to-Nashville choice defined by its one-acre lots; and the in-town Nashville edge of Forest Hills and Oak Hill. Each fits a very different family.

Here's a piece of advice you won't get from a listing site: look hard at the pocket between Franklin and Leiper's Fork. Along the Old Hillsboro Road corridor, on the periphery of the Fork, there's genuine value — the Leiper's Fork feel and land, closer in than the marquee addresses, and often for less. It's where I quietly point families who want the dream without the trophy price.

05 The part nobody tells you

The land & property playbook

This is the section that separates a good move from an expensive lesson — and it's the stuff most agents can't or won't put in writing.

Most families I work with are buying an existing or newly-built home — not raw land to build on. But out in the county, whether that home was finished last year or a century ago, its infrastructure still isn't a given. It's a question mark you resolve before you fall in love:

• Water isn't one utility. A patchwork of districts — Milcrofton, H.B. & T.S., Nolensville–College Grove, Mallory Valley — serves the county, and even inside the City of Franklin more than one provider operates. Remote acreage is often on a private well.
• Septic is the number-one check. There's no sewer out on the land, so most country and estate homes run on a private septic system. On a home you're buying, get that system inspected — a tired drain field is a five-figure surprise you don't want to inherit. If you're buying land to build, soil and perc conditions can also cap how large a home — or how many bedrooms — a lot will support, so pull recent perc records too.
• Fiber is better than you'd think — but verify. United Communications has wired much of rural Williamson (around 88% of College Grove, up to gigabit speeds), but it's address-by-address, and remote parcels still fall back to Starlink. For a hybrid-remote career, confirm the lot, not the ZIP.
• Gas splits down the middle, and true acreage often runs on propane because the main never reaches it. The county doesn't pick up your trash, either — you'll hire a private hauler (yes, even in Brentwood).
• Greenbelt, floodplain, and barns. Agricultural (greenbelt) status can lower the tax on land; the Harpeth's floodplain can make part of a beautiful parcel unbuildable; and outbuildings and horse facilities carry their own permitting. All knowable in advance — if you know to ask.

Knowing this is half of it. Having the well and septic inspectors — and, if you're building, the soil consultant and builder who've done it a hundred times — is the other half.

Buying in a gated community, downtown, or Brentwood instead? Much of that inventory — new construction and resale alike — sits on full city water, sewer, and services. The checklist above is mainly for country and acreage homes.

06 The drive

The commute & proximity truth

"Thirty minutes to the airport" is true — sometimes. Let me give you the honest version, because proximity math is one of the first things you'll want to run.

From downtown Franklin, Nashville is about 22 miles and 25–35 minutes off-peak — but real rush hour on I-65 can stretch that to 45–70. The airport (BNA) adds ten or fifteen more. From farther out — Leiper's Fork, College Grove, Arrington — you layer on time, but even there the airport is well under an hour off-peak. That's the trade a lot of families are happy to make: far enough out that your kids can ride bikes until dark, close enough that a Monday-morning flight is a short hop.

07 The schools

Schools — the version with nuance

For most families this is the whole ballgame, so let me be straight with you — and let me be careful, because fair-housing rules (rightly) keep me from ranking schools or steering you. What I can give you is facts and fit.

The public system, Williamson County Schools, is genuinely among the top-rated in Tennessee, and it's investing — a new Innovation Center opened in 2026 with pathways in aviation, cybersecurity and AI, and more, and Franklin High runs the state's first International Baccalaureate program. The private options are deep, and here's the honest distinction I draw for families: the public schools are excellent across the board, so the private conversation usually comes down to two things — fit and size, and, for many families, alignment with their faith or a particular educational model (classical, college-prep, and so on). Both paths offer strong academics and excellent extracurriculars. Which is right depends entirely on your kids.

08 The people

Faith & community

One of the first questions families ask me — and one most guides skip — is simply: how do we find our people?

Franklin makes it easier than most places. There's a deep and varied faith community across the county, from historic downtown congregations to large modern churches, and it's one of the most common ways new families plug in and build a circle fast. Beyond that, it's youth sports leagues, the neighborhood you choose, the clubs, and the sheer number of other families who also just moved here and are looking to connect. This is a town that's used to welcoming people. Tell me what you're looking for and I'll point you toward the right fit — it's the kind of thing best done over a conversation, not a list.

09 The landing

Your first ninety days

The move itself is the easy part. It's the hundred small things after — the license, the utilities, the well guy — that trip people up. So I made you a checklist.

A few Tennessee specifics worth knowing up front: new residents have about 30 days to get a Tennessee driver's license and register their vehicles — and the good news is there's no emissions test (statewide testing ended in 2022). There's no state income tax to set up. And utilities, as you now know, depend entirely on your address. The checklist walks you through all of it, in order, and saves your progress.

10 The good part

Living here — my Franklin

Enough logistics. Here's the part I actually love: what to do once you're here. This is my real list — the places I go, and the day I'd give you if you'd just landed.

Start your mornings with coffee at The Coffee House downtown or Hake's Coffee Station. When it's a nice night out, it's Cork & Cow, Palato, Sperry's, or a table at Southall; when it's the whole family on a weeknight, it's Puckett's downtown for the music and the mess. Weekend breakfast is Country Boy out in Leiper's Fork. And when I'm closing a deal or celebrating one, it's a cocktail at The Amendment.

Give me your first Saturday and I'll show you why you moved here.

Through the year, the calendar fills itself: the Pilgrimage Festival in the fall, the Christmas tree lighting and the whole holiday-downtown magic, and warm nights of music at the Franklin Theatre, the Ryman, and FirstBank Amphitheater. Four real seasons — none of them, mercifully, overstaying its welcome, winter included. And when you want a truck, a tractor, a fishing morning, or a good barber, I've got a name for that too — it's just a text away.

11 The person behind the guide

I came home to Franklin, too

One last thing before you go — a little about who you'd actually be working with.

I know the pull toward Franklin because I've felt it my whole life. I lived here before I could walk — in the old house that now sits at the heart of Battle Ground Academy's campus, the one where the offices are today. My family moved to Mississippi for my dad's job when I was young, but some part of me stayed pointed back this way. About fifteen years ago I made it home for good, and I've never looked back.

I didn't take the straight line into real estate. I started in tech, spent years in the mortgage business, and the whole time I was buying and holding property myself — long-term and short-term rentals around the area. Real estate was the thing I always came back to, the thing I actually thought about. Eventually I stopped doing everything else and went all in on the part I love. What that means for you: I've sat on your side of the table as an investor, and I understand the financing from the inside — so I see a home as both a place to build a life and an asset to get right.

Off the clock, you'll usually find me outdoors. I hunt and fish, I've got a real weakness for motorcycles and old cars, and I'll always make time for live music, a good book, or a film. It's no accident those are the exact things this part of Tennessee is made for — it's a big part of why I love calling it home, and why I love helping other families do the same.

I'm not just selling you a place to live. I'm helping you land somewhere I chose for myself, twice.