Business

Middle Class Gets Kicked To Curb As Elites Flock To Nashville

Flag of Tennessee (Thomas R Machnitzki/Wikimedia Commons)

As Nashville, Tennessee’s luxury housing market booms, middle-class residents are suffering from high housing costs and struggling to purchase homes.

Attracted by the lack of income and inheritance taxes, the ultra-wealthy have quickly moved to Nashville, and its luxury housing market is thriving, Bloomberg reported. Vying for homes in the Volunteer State, these elites are driving up prices and leaving longtime middle-class residents to deal with a high cost of living.

The median age of a first-time homebuyer in the United States is now 40 years old, and Nashville is no different, according to Greater Nashville Realtors. While Nashville’s policymakers have expanded efforts to improve affordability, the jury is out on whether new changes will help the city’s middle class become homeowners.

The prices of homes in Nashville have more than doubled since 2014, and baby boomer-aged people residing without children own 25% of family-sized homes in Nashville, according to Axios Nashville. Despite making up only 20% of the population, baby boomers hold over 50% of the household wealth in the United States, giving them an advantage over younger people when purchasing homes.

While sales of Nashville homes valued under $1 million declined since 2025, those valued over $2 million sold 6% more, according to Axios.

“I know a property that sold in 2021 for $6 million. In 2026, it closed for over $18 million — and if they did any work, it wasn’t much,” luxury real estate agent Jamie Parson told Bloomberg.

Nashville has experienced a greater increase in sales of homes in the top 1% by price (or ultra-luxury homes) than any other metropolitan area, a 208% increase from 2017 to 2025, Bloomberg reported. Compare this to New York City, which has seen ultra-luxury home sales decrease by 39%. Parsons marketed a $33.5 million penthouse in downtown Nashville that attracted interest spanning all the way to Dubai, she told Bloomberg.

Average-income families are priced out of most of the newly developed housing. Nashville residents require an income of $128,119 per year to afford a median-priced home, according to Redfin analysis.

Democrat Mayor Freddie O’Connell has emphasized the city’s efforts to improve affordability, and the Metro Council recently voted to pass the largest affordable housing investment in Nashville’s history, Fox 17 Nashville reported. The measure included a $40 million grant to build and rehabilitate 1,100 homes for residents making under $93,000 a year.

O’Connell didn’t respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

The grant is managed through the Barnes Housing Trust Fund, which has invested $191 million into 39 nonprofits since its inception in 2013. The Barnes Fund is credited with the preservation and creation of over 6,000 homes in the Nashville area.

Most of these homes are for renters, however. Of the 6,563 homes that have benefited from public funding, 5,131 are designated as rental homes, according to the 2026 Barnes Housing Trust Fund Annual Report. Furthermore, the affordable housing initiative has created only 467 new for-sale homes since 2013.

To receive housing vouchers in Nashville, a household must be designated “very low-income” by Nashville’s Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA). For example, a family of four would need to earn less than $58,000 a year in 2026 to qualify for government housing assistance.

The housing affordability crisis has transformed into an issue affecting more than just the working class, and more cities than just Nashville.

“45% of the 390 metropolitan statistical areas are so expensive that households require six-figure incomes to buy an average-priced home,” Valerie White, head of National Housing Strategic Initiatives, wrote. This trend has grown beyond California and other coastal locations like New York City that are typically associated with high housing costs. Now even Nashville, Asheville, Houston and Boise are among the many cities requiring well-over six-figure incomes to afford a home.

“It has become kind of exclusive to live here now. Money is power and the rich pay whatever they need to. And if you don’t have money, you don’t have a voice,” local Nashvillian reverend Kevin Riggs told Bloomberg.