Butler, Tennessee.
Typical home $308,320 (+1.5% in a year). Johnson City, TN metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$869 (+116%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,564 +2%
- $303,756$308,320 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $54,109 +21%
- $254,211$308,320 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Butler$1,618
- Tennessee$1,737
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Butler, TN rose 1.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Butler, Johnson County, Tennessee
Butler, in Johnson County, had 297 people in the 2020 census. Half its households earn more than $64,188 a year and half less, against $53,129 across Johnson County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Johnson County was 4.5% in August 2026, and the county had 2.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Johnson County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Butler is a very small community in Johnson County, in the mountains of northeast Tennessee. Household incomes here run higher than across the county as a whole, and fewer residents live below the poverty line than one might expect for a rural mountain area. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers stay mild and pleasantly warm in July.
Work. Residents of Butler work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with many others in manufacturing, shops, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Johnson County, some of the largest workplaces are Danny Herman Trucking, Johnson County Schools and New River Hardwoods, a sawmill. Unemployment across the county is a little lower than it was a year ago, though the number of jobs has slipped slightly.
Things to do. Watauga Lake, a large reservoir, lies in or beside town, so boating and time on the water are close at hand. A short drive away are the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, a protected area tied to the nineteenth-century and earlier history of the region, and the Elk River and the Doe River, both good for time beside moving water. Bristol Motor Speedway, a race track, is a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 5%below the poverty line
What people in Johnson County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Johnson County had 4,187 jobs in 2025, 2.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 42° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 79° and lows near 61°. About 48 inches of snow and 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Flat Springs 1E weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Johnson County
- Danny Herman TruckingGeneral freight trucking, long-distance, truckload740
- Johnson County SchoolsSchool district485FTE
- Universal Health ServicesRes mental health substance abuse facilit154
- New River HardwoodsSawmills82
- Signature HealthcareSkilled nursing facilities82
- Food LionGrocery stores72
- Town of Mountain CityExecutive and legislative office combinations57
- Johnson County Community HospitalCritical access hospital50FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,212 people in all across the county; Butler has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Butler’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Johnson County and the Johnson City, TN metro.
Butler home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Butler$308,320
- Tennessee$330,844
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Butler listings — the market is roughly in balance.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Butler25.36%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Butler41
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Butler8
Zip codes with a Butler address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Butler — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.