Living in Anderson, IN

Madison County

Anderson carries a real, honest, two-sided story this record does not flatten into either a doom narrative or an oversold turnaround. From the 1920s through the 1970s, Anderson was a genuine major GM auto town -- Delco-Remy and Guide Lamp ran roughly seven plants employing about 8,000 workers by the 1930s -- before real deindustrialization hit, culminating in Delco Remy America's 2003 manufacturing closure (350 jobs lost). This record discloses that decline plainly. Alongside it sits a real, current, dated comeback: in 2025, Saica Group committed $110 million to a new corrugated-packaging plant built on the former Delco Remy site itself, and FITT USA established its North American headquarters in Anderson with a $20 million investment -- genuine, recent, specifically named investment. Anderson's housing runs genuinely affordable (an average home value around $138,938), its state and local tax structure is genuinely low relative to many states even with Madison County's real 2.25% local income tax layer, and Anderson University anchors a distinct higher-education presence. Anderson's K-12 public schools run genuinely below the Indiana state average, and the city's overall crime rate runs slightly above the national figure (even as its violent-crime rate runs well below it) -- both disclosed honestly rather than papered over.

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Housing

Median sale price$155,000

Taxes

Local effective property tax rate1.09%

Not independently sourced at the Madison County level this session. Indiana's top state income tax rate is 2.95%. See the Indiana hub page for the statewide property tax context -- do not treat that figure as Anderson-specific.

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The tradeoffs

Pros

Genuinely affordable housing (an average home value around $138,938, well below national and many Indiana Tier A figures); Indiana's low, simple flat state income tax; real, current, dated 2025 manufacturing investment (Saica Group, FITT USA) on the heels of the city's honest GM-era decline; a distinct higher-education anchor via Anderson University; a genuinely low violent-crime rate relative to the national figure; and a practical I-69 location between Indianapolis, Muncie, and Fort Wayne.

Cons

K-12 public schools that run genuinely below the Indiana state average on proficiency measures; an overall crime rate that runs slightly above the national figure, driven substantially by property crime; a real, disclosed history of substantial manufacturing-job loss following GM's decline that the city's 2025 investment wins have not yet fully offset; and a city-specific effective property tax rate (1.09%) that runs above both the Madison County and Indiana statewide medians.

Who this fits

Best for: Best fits affordability- and low-tax-focused buyers, especially those with a specific career tie to Anderson's diversifying manufacturing base (Nestle, NTN Driveshaft, Saica Group, FITT USA) or to Anderson University; and buyers who weigh Anderson's real, current comeback honestly against its real, disclosed manufacturing-decline history rather than assuming either the old doom story or an oversold turnaround.

Maybe not for you if: Probably not the right fit for families prioritizing a top-performing public school district without researching Anderson's real, disclosed below-average proficiency figures directly first; or for anyone assuming Anderson's 2025 investment wins have already fully replaced the scale of jobs lost during the GM-era manufacturing decline -- that recovery is real but still developing.

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Last reviewed: 2026-08-27. Independent research; see individual metric entries above for source attribution. This is not financial, tax, or legal advice -- confirm current figures with a local professional before making a decision.