What part of the county are you in? I live in cloudland.Our taxes dropped when we moved to rural Chattooga county from Cherokee, even on a larger home and acreage but homeowners insurance is much higher. We are 8 miles from a volunteer, subscription fire service. Just one thing you might want to consider when looking for a place in a more rural area. The benefits, in our opinion, is definitely worth the cost. We had a list of have to haves and want to haves when we were looking, homeowners insurance cost was not something that we considered on those lists.