Living in Eads, TN: A Local’s Honest Guide

When a client wants space, I take them to Eads. This is where the metro trades sidewalks for acreage — larger lots, custom homes, room for horses if you want them, and a short drive to Collierville's shopping and the Highway 385 corridor. It is also the trickiest place in the metro to buy, because almost nothing here works the way a subdivision purchase works. Here is what I make sure every buyer understands before we write an offer.

Where Eads actually is — and why the boundary matters

Eads is an unincorporated community on the eastern edge of Shelby County, centered on the 38028 ZIP code. Unincorporated is the operative word: it is not a city. There is no Eads city hall, no city property tax, and no municipal school district. The 38028 area also straddles the county line, so some addresses that receive Eads mail sit in Fayette County rather than Shelby. Two houses a mile apart can fall in different counties, different school districts, and different taxing jurisdictions.

That is not a technicality. It changes your tax bill, your children's schools, and who responds when you call 911. I verify all three by exact address on every property before an offer — never from the mailing address.

The school zoning question — the one that costs people money

The most common mistake I see out here: a buyer assumes an Eads address comes with Collierville or Germantown schools because it is close to them. It does not. Shelby County's municipal school districts serve their own municipalities, and Eads is not in one.

In practice, Eads zoning is genuinely mixed. Much of unincorporated Eads is served by Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Some addresses fall into Arlington Community Schools. The Fayette County portion of the 38028 area is served by Fayette County Schools. Briarcrest Christian School also has its campus in Eads, which is part of why some families look here in the first place.

If you want a municipal district you are not zoned for, you are looking at an out-of-district transfer — which means tuition, and it means the district has to have room. Collierville Schools, for example, charges tuition for students who live in Shelby County but outside Collierville, caps it per family, and has at times reported no space available for out-of-district transfers at all. A transfer is a request, not a right, and it is not something to build a home purchase around.

Verify per address with the district. I do it for every property I show, and I would tell you the same thing if you were buying through somebody else.

What unincorporated status does to your tax bill

Here is the part buyers tend to like. Tennessee assesses residential property at 25% of appraised value, and rates are quoted per $100 of assessed value. Unincorporated Shelby County owners pay only the county rate — there is no city rate stacked on top.

Using Shelby County's 2026 rate of $2.702382, a home appraised at $500,000 has an assessed value of $125,000 and a county tax bill of roughly $3,378. The same home inside Collierville would add the town's $1.62 rate on that assessed value — about $2,025 more per year, for a total near $5,403. Over a long hold, that gap is real money.

The offset: unincorporated households pay an annual Shelby County fire fee, tiered by the square footage of the structure, rather than getting fire protection funded through city taxes. Budget for it. And check the distance to the nearest station for the specific property, because response distance feeds into your homeowners insurance premium. Shelby County Fire Department Station 61 is in Eads.

Wells, septic, and what I check before you write an offer

Many Eads properties are not on full city water and sewer. That means a well, a septic system, or both — and a different set of contingencies than you would use in a subdivision:

• Percolation test. Do not assume a vacant lot is buildable until the soil passes. This is the single biggest way land buyers lose money out here.
• Septic age, size and permit history with the Shelby County Health Department. A system permitted for three bedrooms constrains what you can add later.
• Well yield and water quality — flow rate, bacteria, and minerals. Iron and hardness are common here and treatable, but you want to know before closing, not after.
• Easements and legal access. Shared drives are common on acreage, and a handshake is not an easement.
• Floodplain and drainage, especially on parcels near the Loosahatchie and Wolf River bottoms.

None of this is exotic. It just has to be sequenced into the contingency period deliberately, because a standard subdivision timeline does not leave room for a perc test and a well test.

Financing acreage and custom builds

Land and custom builds are underwritten differently from an existing subdivision home. Raw land typically needs a land loan with a larger down payment and a shorter term. A custom build needs a construction loan that converts to permanent financing. And appraisals are harder here: comparable sales are thin, parcels vary enormously in size and improvements, and an appraiser unfamiliar with acreage can come in low on a perfectly sound property.

The fix is sequencing. Line up a lender who actually does acreage and construction lending in this county before you write an offer, not after you are under contract. I will make the introduction.

Who Eads is right for

Buyers who want privacy, room for animals or a workshop, or a custom home on land — and who are clear-eyed about schools, utilities, and the longer diligence timeline that comes with all of it. Seclusion without isolation: you are still minutes from Collierville and the 385 corridor.

Who it is not right for: anyone who needs a specific municipal school zone, or who wants a fast, simple, subdivision-style closing.

School district, tax and fire-fee details verified August 2026 against Shelby County and district sources; verify zoning per address with the district. Rules and rates change — contact me for current numbers.