In this video, we explore the different areas of the city and where to invest in Chattanooga, TN based on your goals and risk tolerance.

Matthew: Hey, everybody, Matthew Whitaker here. I am with Alex Smith. Alex Smith runs our Chattanooga office for gkhouses and we are going to talk about where to invest in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and North Georgia. Say “Hi,” Alex.

Alex: What’s up, everybody?

Matthew: So, Alex was kind enough, cool enough, to put together a map of the North Georgia, Chattanooga area and what I would like to do in this video is basically walk through the map and let him tell you a little bit about each area and what houses you can find in there, what types of inventory, what people are doing there.

So, Alex, I think the best thing for us to do is just start on the south side with this big, green box here and talk about North Georgia.

North Georgia

Alex: Okay. So, obviously a little disclaimer on this map. It depends on what you’re looking for. I pretty much drew it from the perspective of just buying and holding a single family house.


So, in North Georgia, you’re gonna find a really good mix of between Class C and Class A properties. The benefit of investing out in this area is that the schools are really good out here.

Matthew: Okay. That’s really cool to know. So, you’re telling me a lot of people buy in North Georgia because the schools, the public schools are good?

Alex: Yeah. So, your options in Chattanooga are to send your kid to a not-so-good to okay public school in the city or send to a private school. If you don’t wanna do either and send them to a really good public school, North Georgia is where you want to be.

Matthew: So, the word on the street is that North Georgia has got great public schools.

Would you say, in this big box…are there are a lot of single-family rentals?

Alex: Oh, yeah. Yeah. There’s a lot of single-family rentals out here.

Matthew: And from a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of value, 10 being hey, is the best value in Chattanooga, what would you give this North Georgia area?

Alex: Probably between a 7 and 9.

Matthew: So, there’s some great deals in that area?

Alex: Yes.

East Chattanooga

Matthew: Cool. All right. Let’s move on. Let’s talk about East Chattanooga.

Alex: So, East Chattanooga…again, if you’re looking to buy and hold a single family, this is where you wanna be. The schools are okay out here but you’re gonna get a lot of bang for your buck in terms of a good value for a house that you can hold on to and on a good tenant and get some rent, good rent out for a couple of years.

Anybody who doesn’t wanna live downtown or in the North Shore, they either live in East Chattanooga, so the second green area or they live in Red Bank.

Matthew: Cool. And we’ll talk about Red Bank up here in a second. So, East Chattanooga and just a disclaimer on schools, this is what the word on the street is.

We’re not making any claims to schools being better. We’re just saying what people are saying to us. And so you’re saying on the east side on a scale of 1 to 10, what about value?

Alex: Between an 8 and 9.


Alex: What I was gonna say was in North Georgia it’s not as densely populated as it is east of the city. So, if you wanna minimize days on market and get a good value, East Chattanooga is where you’ll wanna be.

Matthew: And how’s the competition in East Chattanooga? Do a lot of people know about this?

Alex: That’s a good question. In terms of if a lot of people know about it, I don’t know, but I would guess so.


Matthew: Cool. All right. There aren’t too many secrets anymore with the internet. All right. Let’s move to downtown Chattanooga. Why don’t you tell us…I would imagine there’s a lot of lofts down there?

Alex: Yes. So, downtown we manage a couple of downtown condos. So, if you’re looking to get into that space, downtown would be a good area to find that sort of property in.

Matthew: Cool. So, you’re talking about industrial-type buildings that they’ve retrofitted into condos and restaurants in the area?

Alex: Yeah. Either that or a new building specifically for condos.

Matthew: Cool. And now on a scale of 1 to 10, the value in that area in your opinion.


Matthew: Okay. So, you got to look a little harder for the deals. All right. What about these two red boxes right here, North Shore and Ooltewah?

Alex: Yeah. So, before we head to those, another quick, little factoid about downtown. So, Matthew, if you’ll zoom into the map a little bit so they can see the neighborhoods.

As you move east into the city you’ll get a pretty decent mix of property types, you could find a distressed Class D, you can find a historic Class A.

If you’re into flipping, this would be a good place to find a flip. The schools in this area are not good, so keep that in mind. If you’re not really looking to do a flip and you wanna get into maybe lower income housing, this would be a good area to do that in as well, but you’ll find a lot of older houses that will probably need a lot of maintenance.

North Shore and Ooltewah

Matthew: Awesome. All right. Let’s move on to North Shore and Ooltewah. Let’s group them together because these are where the pricier homes are.

Alex: Right. Exactly. So, North Shore is like the hip area of town, a lot of Class A. You might be able to find a flip but I would imagine they’re pretty hard to find.

North Shore specifically is pretty overpriced but it’s very densely populated. So, keep those in mind if you’re looking to invest in the North Shore area.


Alex: Yes. That’s what I would say.

Matthew: All right. And then the last thing, this Northside you’re calling Hixson.

Alex: Yeah. So, before we get there I wanna talk about Ooltewah for a second. So, the good thing about Ooltewah is that you’re pretty close to Volkswagen and you’re pretty close to Amazon. Those are probably the two biggest employers in Chattanooga, I would say.

Matthew: And those are up 75?


Red Bank and Hixon


Alex: Yeah. So, as I mentioned a second ago, Red Bank is similar to East Chattanooga. If people wanna be close to the North Shore but don’t wanna deal with North Shore prices, Red Bank is where they go.

So, you’ll find a lot of good value there. As you get further north, or I guess northeast into Hixson…Hixson is not incorporated, so it’s not as densely populated. And yeah. It’s not gonna be as densely populated as your East Chattanooga.

Matthew: Awesome. And you think this is a place for prime value?

Alex: I would say Red Bank is. As you get further and further north, I wouldn’t say the same thing.

Matthew: It’s just harder to find deals because they are more spread out, not dense?

Alex: Yeah. There’s deals to be found, but if you wanna minimize your vacancy, Red Bank in East Chattanooga is where you’re gonna wanna be.



If you wanna find out more, you can reach out to us. Alex is obviously available. We’d love to talk to you about meeting your investing needs in Chattanooga. So, thank you very much, everybody.

Alex: Thanks, everybody.