Cost of Living & Housing in Crossville
Crossville pairs genuinely affordable housing with a directly sourced, distinctive local-finance fact: Cumberland County holds the lowest county property tax rate of any county in Tennessee -- a real advantage worth understanding in context, alongside a genuinely wide, disclosed spread in local income and cost-of-living figures.
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Learn moreHousing Prices -- Affordable, With a City-vs-County Divergence
Redfin cites a $300,000 median sale price for Crossville over the three months ending May 2026 (down a modest 1.0% year over year), with price per square foot ($206) up 3.3%. Cumberland County as a whole showed a notably steeper decline over a similar period (median $336,000 in March 2026, down 6.6% year over year) -- a real, disclosed divergence between the city and county trend, not independently reconciled this session. Pull a current listing-based figure for a specific budgeting decision.
Property Taxes -- Genuinely the Lowest County Rate in Tennessee
This is a real, directly sourced, distinctive fact: per figures released by the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury and reported by the Crossville Chronicle, Cumberland County carries the LOWEST county property tax rate of any county in the state ($1.1350 per $100 assessed value), with the City of Crossville adding its own modest $0.6059 per $100. Combined, this produces a median effective property tax rate in Crossville of about 0.28% -- well below both the Tennessee state median (0.64%) and the national median (0.99%) -- with a typical annual tax bill of just $531 on a $187,250 median home value, versus a $2,690 national median bill.
Overall Cost of Living and Income -- A Genuinely Wide, Disclosed Spread
Cost-of-living aggregators disagreed: one cited an overall index of 93 (modestly below the national average of 100), another (a December 2024 reading) cited 82.3 (meaningfully further below national). Median household income figures disagreed even more sharply -- $50,672 from one source, $37,212 from another, a spread of more than 35% not resolved to a single figure this session. Both readings point the same direction (well below the national median), but the wide spread itself is disclosed rather than papered over with false precision.
No State Income Tax, But a High Combined Sales Tax
Tennessee levies no state income tax on wages or salaries -- a real, structural, statewide advantage. Cumberland County's minimum combined 2026 sales tax rate is 9.75% (7.00% Tennessee state + 2.75% Cumberland County local option), among the higher combined rates nationally, consistent with Tennessee's broader statewide pattern.
Key takeaways
- Cumberland County holds the LOWEST county property tax rate in Tennessee (per the state Comptroller), producing a roughly 0.28% median effective rate in Crossville and a $531 typical annual bill -- well below both state and national medians.
- Crossville's own median sale price ($300,000) declined more modestly (-1.0% YoY) than Cumberland County's broader figure (-6.6% YoY to $336,000) -- a real, disclosed divergence worth understanding before assuming county-wide trend data applies evenly to the city.
- Median household income figures disagreed sharply across sources ($37,212-$50,672) and cost-of-living index readings ranged 82.3-93 (where 100 = U.S. average) -- both disclosed as real spreads, not resolved to one number.
- No state income tax applies statewide, but Cumberland County's combined sales tax rate runs 9.75%, consistent with Tennessee leaning on sales tax rather than income or (in this county's case) property tax.
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