Gallatin and White House closed within $1,444 of each other at the median this year. The White House buyer got 170 more square feet for it. Portland has the lowest median in Sumner County and still costs $23 more per square foot than White House does. The median tells you what a city sells. It does not tell you what your money buys.

Four cities, 3,278 closed sales in the past 12 months, and a price ladder that turns out to have three rungs rather than four. Hendersonville closed at a $529,950 median. Gallatin closed at $430,000 and White House closed at $428,556, a difference of $1,444. Portland closed at $328,000.

Then you divide by square footage, and the two cities that tied stop looking anything alike. Gallatin costs $218 per square foot and White House costs $204. The White House buyer paid $1,444 less and took home 170 more square feet. Portland makes the same point louder: its median sits $100,556 below White House and it still costs $23 more per square foot, because the typical Portland closing measured 1,507 square feet against White House's 2,203.

The city that actually sells the cheapest square foot in Sumner County is White House at $204, and it is not close. If you want that comparison run against your specific number rather than against a countywide median, Ryan Beals can pull closed sales in your exact price band in all four cities and put the square footage, the year built, and the HOA exposure side by side.

What follows is the past 12 months of RealTracs closed sales in Gallatin, Hendersonville, White House, and Portland, through August 29, 2026. Every figure below is a closed sale rather than an asking price, and every White House figure is the Sumner County side of that city only, which matters more than it sounds like it should. There is a section below on why.

The Four Medians Rank These Cities in an Order Price Per Square Foot Reverses

Here is the ranking by median sale price: Hendersonville $529,950, Gallatin $430,000, White House $428,556, Portland $328,000. Here is the ranking by median price per square foot: Hendersonville $229, Portland $227, Gallatin $218, White House $204.

Portland moves from the cheapest median in the county to the second most expensive square foot in it. Gallatin and White House swap ends of the list: $1,444 apart on price, $14 apart per square foot, and 170 square feet apart in what actually changes hands. Only Hendersonville holds its position, and it holds it for a reason worth understanding: Hendersonville is the one city here where the median is high because the homes are both large and expensive per foot rather than one or the other.

The gap between Gallatin and Hendersonville has also been closing. A year ago the Hendersonville median ran $132,500 above Gallatin. Today it runs $99,950 above, so the spread narrowed by $32,550 in twelve months. I have written before about why Hendersonville has run ahead of Gallatin on price, and that piece still holds on the underlying reasons, but the size of the premium is moving.

Neither city moved for the reason the headline implies. Gallatin's median rose 4.2 percent, from $412,500 to $430,000, while its price per square foot went from $217 to $218. That is $1 per foot in twelve months. What actually changed is the size of the house: the median Gallatin closing grew from 1,872 square feet to 2,033. Buyers did not pay more per foot. They bought more feet.

Hendersonville ran the same story in reverse. Its median fell 2.8 percent, from $545,000 to $529,950, while its price per square foot rose $3 to $229. The median Hendersonville closing shrank from 2,508 square feet to 2,414. A seller reading that median as a 2.8 percent market decline is reading a mix shift as a price cut.

What $380,000 to $420,000 Buys in Each Sumner County City

This is where the comparison stops being academic. Hold the budget still at $380,000 to $420,000, which is where all four of these markets overlap most cleanly, and look at what each city handed over in the past 12 months.

White House delivered a median 2,013 square feet at $195 per square foot, built 2022, across 40 closings, 42 percent of them new construction. Gallatin delivered 1,814 square feet at $220, built 2024, across 189 closings. Hendersonville delivered 1,775 square feet at $226, built 1996, across 107 closings. Portland delivered 1,608 square feet at $248, built 2019, across 34 closings.

Read those four lines again. At the identical price, White House hands you 405 more square feet than Portland does, and Portland charges $53 more per square foot, a 27 percent premium, to do it. The cheapest city in Sumner County is the most expensive place in Sumner County to buy a square foot in this band.

The age spread at that budget is just as wide. The median $380,000 to $420,000 home was built 2022 in White House and 1996 in Hendersonville, 26 years of roof, HVAC, windows, and kitchen between two homes that cost the same money. Neither is the right answer on its own. A 1996 Hendersonville home sits on an established lot with mature trees and a shorter drive to the lake, and a 2022 White House home comes with a builder warranty and nothing deferred. They are different purchases wearing the same price tag.

The comparison never clicks at the kitchen table. It clicks in the car between showings. Last year a couple came up from Hendersonville convinced they were priced out at four hundred thousand, and that morning we walked two Hendersonville homes from the mid-nineties with original HVAC and a bathroom nobody had touched. That afternoon we stood in a White House build at the same number with a bonus room, a warranty on every system in it, and enough left over that they were talking about a fence. They did not change their mind because I showed them a chart.

If you want this same exercise run one city at a time, I have done it for what $400,000 buys in Gallatin versus Hendersonville, for what $425,000 buys in White House, and in the Gallatin price tier breakdown.

Why Every White House Number Here Is the Sumner County Half

White House is the one city in this comparison that does not sit entirely inside Sumner County. The city straddles the Sumner and Robertson line, and on the last full year of city-wide data I have, 64 percent of White House closings were Robertson County addresses. Every White House figure in this post is the Sumner County side only, because that is the apples-to-apples comparison against three cities that sit entirely in Sumner.

The distinction is worth about forty thousand dollars. Over the twelve months from July 2025 through July 21, 2026, the blended city-wide White House median was $389,392 over 698 closings. The Sumner County subset of that same period ran $427,350, or $37,958 higher. So if you have seen White House quoted in the high three hundreds, including on an earlier version of this page, you were reading a blended number. A buyer shopping Sumner County addresses in White House is shopping a materially different price point than that figure suggests.

The county line moves the school assignment too. Sumner County addresses reported White House High School in the closed data. Robertson County addresses reported White House Heritage High School. Same city, same signage on the way in, two different systems. The Robertson side is also where most of the large builder communities sit, which is why the Sumner side of White House runs a lower new construction share than the city as a whole. I have compared White House against Hendersonville separately if that is the matchup you are working on.

Sumner County Market Data by City

Data from RealTracs MLS. Rolling 12-month period. Closed sales only.

Active, Coming Soon & Under Contract Across Sumner County TN

Recently Sold in Sumner County TN (Past 12 Months)

Who Is Actually Buying in Each Sumner County City, and When They Look

The four cities sort buyers by commute before they sort them by price. Hendersonville feeds directly onto Vietnam Veterans Boulevard, which is Highway 386, and that is the shortest run of the four. Most mornings a Hendersonville commuter reaches downtown Nashville in 35 to 45 minutes, and Vanderbilt Medical Center and the HCA campuses are the employers that show up over and over in that group.

Gallatin buyers get on 386 by way of Long Hollow Pike or Nashville Pike, and the honest number is 45 to 55 minutes to downtown on a typical weekday morning. The friction point every eastern Gallatin buyer needs to drive before committing is the Long Hollow Pike and Highway 386 interchange at Highway 109. It backs up hard in the evening rush, and it is the single reason two homes four minutes apart in Gallatin can feel like different commutes. It also sits close to the line between the Gallatin city high school zone and the Station Camp and Liberty Creek zones, which is why I tell buyers on that side of town to drive it at 5:30 p.m. before they fall in love with a floor plan.

White House buyers take Interstate 65 rather than 386, which is a different kind of commute: faster on a clear morning, worse when 65 has an incident, and typically 40 to 50 minutes to downtown. That interstate access is also why White House pulls buyers who work north and west of the city rather than in the 386 and 109 corridor.

Portland is the furthest out, typically 55 to 70 minutes to downtown Nashville, and its buyer profile reflects that. It draws people who work in the northern half of the county or in Bowling Green, people who work from home, and buyers who want acreage and no HOA more than they want a short drive. Portland is also the only one of the four where a third of closings, 34 percent, came in under $300,000, which is why it attracts first-time buyers priced out of the other three.

New Construction Costs Less Per Square Foot in Three of These Four Cities

New construction share over the past 12 months: White House 45 percent, Gallatin 42 percent, Portland 24 percent, and Hendersonville 18 percent. White House and Gallatin are effectively builder markets. Hendersonville is not.

The share is less interesting than which direction the premium runs. In Gallatin, new construction closed at $214 per square foot against $221 for resale. In White House, $200 against $208. In Portland, $203 against $228, the widest gap of the four. In all three, the builder is selling the cheaper square foot, which is the opposite of what most buyers walk in expecting.

Hendersonville is the exception and it is not close: $243 per square foot new against $226 resale, on a $649,990 new-construction median against a $498,000 resale median. Hendersonville builders are working the top of that market rather than the entry to it, which is why Hendersonville can post the highest median in the county while carrying the smallest share of new construction in it.

That shows up in how the negotiation goes. 62 percent of White House closings landed at or above list and the median came in at 99.16 percent of the original list price. Hendersonville ran 48 percent at or above list and 98.30 percent of original list, the softest of the four. Gallatin sat at 58 percent and 99.48 percent.

Days on market are tighter across the county than the price gaps suggest: Gallatin 14 days, White House 15, Hendersonville 18, and Portland 19. The number that actually separates these markets is not how long a home sits, it is how far the price moves before it closes. 30 percent of Gallatin sellers had reduced their price by the time they closed, against 37 percent in Portland and 33 percent in Hendersonville.

HOA Exposure Is Not Comparable Across These Four Cities

The monthly dues are close enough across the county to look interchangeable. The odds of having dues at all are not. In White House 67 percent of closed sales carried an HOA fee and in Gallatin 74 percent, against 58 percent in Hendersonville and 15 percent in Portland.

Where a fee exists, the medians run $96 a month in Gallatin, $90 in Hendersonville, $65 in White House, and $41 in Portland. So the practical difference between Portland and the rest is not the size of the check. It is that in Portland you probably are not writing one, and in Gallatin and White House you probably are.

One more thing worth knowing about the Gallatin figure: the median monthly fee there dropped from $135 a year ago to $96 today. Nothing was renegotiated. The townhome share of Gallatin closings fell, and townhome dues are the high end of the range, so the median came down with the mix.

Schools by City, as Reported in the Closed Sale Data

Every school assignment below comes from the school fields on the closed listings themselves rather than from a district map, and zone lines are redrawn periodically, so treat this as what sold where and verify your specific address before you write an offer.

Gallatin closings reported three high school zones: Gallatin Senior High, Station Camp High, and Liberty Creek High. Hendersonville closings reported Beech Senior High, Hendersonville High, and Station Camp High, and a small number reported Liberty Creek. Portland closings reported Portland High School almost without exception. White House closings split on the county line, with Sumner County addresses reporting White House High School and Robertson County addresses reporting White House Heritage High School.

Two of these cities share zones with each other, which surprises people. Station Camp High School serves closings in both Gallatin and Hendersonville, and Liberty Creek serves a smaller slice of both. If the zone is what you are shopping for rather than the city, the city boundary is the wrong filter. I mapped that out in detail across school zones across Sumner County.

Which City Fits Which Budget

Under $300,000, Portland is the only one of the four with real volume: 34 percent of its closings landed there against 11 percent in Gallatin, 7 percent in Hendersonville, and 7 percent in White House. At that number you are buying an older, smaller Portland home, and you are paying the highest price per square foot in the county to do it.

Between $300,000 and $400,000, Gallatin is the cheapest square foot at $215, with White House close behind at $219 and both well under Portland at $236 and Hendersonville at $234. The bigger story in that band is age. The median closing was built 2025 in Gallatin, 2019 in White House, 2018 in Portland, and 1984 in Hendersonville. At the same money, Gallatin is handing you new construction and Hendersonville is handing you a house 41 years older. This is also Portland's core band, with 41 percent of its closings landing there.

Between $380,000 and $420,000, White House takes over decisively and does not give the lead back. $195 per square foot against $220 in Gallatin, $226 in Hendersonville, and $248 in Portland, on the newest median construction of the four.

Above $700,000, the comparison narrows to Gallatin and Hendersonville, because White House and Portland barely play there. 23 percent of Hendersonville closings cleared $700,000 against 14 percent in Gallatin, 5 percent in Portland, and 1 percent in White House. At that level you are choosing between lake proximity and established Hendersonville neighborhoods on one side and newer Gallatin construction on the other, and I broke the Gallatin side of that down by neighborhood in best neighborhoods in Gallatin.

Why Work with Ryan Beals

Most agents in Sumner County pick a city and stay in it. I was born and raised in both Gallatin and Hendersonville, I live in Gallatin now, and I work all four of these markets, which is the only way a cross-city comparison is worth anything. When a buyer asks me whether they should be looking in White House or Gallatin, I do not answer from feel. I pull the closed sales in their price band in both cities and put the square footage, the year built, the HOA, and the school assignment next to each other.

The Long Hollow Pike and Highway 386 interchange at 109 is the example I use most, because it is the piece no data set shows you. Two Gallatin homes with nearly identical closed comps can sit on opposite sides of that evening backup and on opposite sides of a school zone line, and most agents do not know where that line falls. I do, because I drive it.

I am also not going to tell you which city to buy in. I am going to show you what $380,000 to $420,000 actually bought in each of the four over the past 12 months and let you decide which trade you want to make. If that is the kind of help you are after, call or text me at 629-263-0248 and bring your number.

Frequently Asked Questions