Fairfield Glade

Fairfield Glade is governed by the Fairfield Glade Community Club, which charges its members an assessment. That assessment, plus a one-time fee charged at closing, is the part of living here that has nothing to do with your mortgage and never appears in a listing price. Buyer and seller can negotiate who pays the fee; the contract should say. 1 2

• Community Club assessment, monthly $137 Homes with sewer and trash service, 2026. Up $17 from 2025.
• The same assessment across a year $1,644
• Amenity reserve fee, once, at closing $6,000 Charged at closing. The contract should say who pays. Raised from $5,000 in the 2026 budget.
• Tennessee state income tax None A real and permanent advantage for a retired household.
• Cumberland County property tax $1.1350 per $100 Of assessed value. Tennessee assesses homes at 25% of appraised value, so a $350,000 house works out at roughly $993 a year.
• Combined sales tax 9.75% 7% state plus 2.75% county. Crossville adds nothing on top. This is where some of the income-tax advantage goes back.
• Average rent in Crossville $848 a month July 2025 data, after a rise of 8.2% over one year. Useful if you plan to rent before you buy.

The two tax lines come from the state, not from the Club: the property rate from the Tennessee Comptroller's annual tax report, 7 the sales rate from the state's published local rate schedule. 8 Ask the county assessor for the bill on a specific address before you rely on the arithmetic above; a rate is not a bill.

The rent figure is there because renting a season before you buy is worth doing, and it helps to know what that costs. 5

For scale: Fairfield Glade covers more than 14,000 acres, with about 5,600 homes, roughly about 9,400 residents and 120 miles of roads. 9 The census bureau's five-year survey puts about 88% of the housing units here as someone's usual residence, with about 8% vacant for seasonal or occasional use. Both carry wide margins at this scale, and neither is quite the same thing as lived-in year round. 10 Downtown Knoxville is about 74 miles away, about an hour and a half when the road is clear. 12

That distance is given in whole miles deliberately. The place is big enough that where you buy inside it moves the drive to Knoxville across a range of 66 to 77 miles, which is worth knowing if the drive in question is to a specialist rather than to dinner. 12

Those are the figures this site can source today. The important missing ones are listed at the foot of the page rather than estimated.

In 2025 Wyndham pulled out and the timeshare associations began winding down; they had been contributing $2.55 million a year, roughly 11% of the total. 3 The 2026 budget, approved unanimously on December 1, 2025, answered that with a higher monthly assessment, a higher fee at closing, and the end of the member discount at Club food and beverage outlets. 2

It's the most useful thing to understand before buying here. The current assessment tells you what you pay. This tells you where the money comes from, and what happens when some of it stops. The full account runs through the timeline and the board's reasoning.

Fairfield Glade sits inside Cumberland County, and the county is older than almost anywhere else in Tennessee. That shapes everything from how long it takes to get a dental appointment to who is available to staff a restaurant on a Tuesday.

• Cumberland County population 64,480
• Median age, county 54 Tennessee is 40.3. The United States is 39.1.
• Median age, Fairfield Glade census tracts 67 to 73
• Share of county residents aged 65 and over 34.8% Around 18% nationally.
• Median household income, county $60,632 The national figure is $75,149.

There are effectively two populations sharing one county: a comfortable retired third, and a lower-wage service workforce that keeps the county running. Poverty stands at 14.6%, and a further 29% of households are above the poverty line yet cannot reliably afford basics. 4

It shows up as staffing, as wait times, and as how much of local life runs on volunteers. If you move here, some of those volunteers will be your neighbors. Eventually one of them will be you.

Cumberland Medical Center is open and full-service, including maternity. Any claim that it's closing is false. What's true is thinner and less dramatic: the county is a federally designated shortage area for primary care, mental health and dental care, there are 2,762 residents for every dentist, and specialty care beyond the local cardiology and orthopedic clinics means a drive to Cookeville or Knoxville. 4 11

The healthcare page sets out the whole picture , including the county EMS funding dispute and a short list of things worth checking before you move rather than after.

Four findings from the county's own 2025 health needs assessment, without commentary.

• 36% of adults report loneliness, against 33% nationally. A community with a full activity calendar is not automatically protection against this, particularly after a spouse dies or stops driving.
• Reliable, affordable transportation scored 1.29 out of 5 in the county's community survey, one of the worst-rated items on it. Book-ahead weekday rides exist, and residents rate them inadequate.
• Food insecurity runs at 16%, above the 14% recorded nationally and statewide, in a county widely described as a retirement paradise. Focus groups recorded residents choosing between medication, food and utilities.
• County EMS ran a $2.2 million loss in fiscal 2024-25, and how ambulance service gets funded here is unresolved. 6

4 None of this makes Fairfield Glade a bad place to live. A great many people are happy here, including roughly about 2,000 veterans. It does mean the brochure version leaves things out, and it always leaves out the same kind of thing.

Fairfield Glade suits a household that wants amenities, has the income to absorb an association that can raise its assessment, drives comfortably, and doesn't need frequent specialist care. It suits people who'll join things.

It suits less well a household on a fixed income with no slack, one where a specialist appointment happens monthly, or one where driving is already a question. None of that means stay away. It means plan first, which is the part people skip.

Rather than estimate, the gaps are marked. Each is a question worth putting to the Club, a realtor or the county, and each gets filled here as it's sourced.