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Relocating is an overwhelming prospect, even when the move is entirely voluntary. It'southward that much more intense when you're up against a deadline, similar your first day at a new job or the start of the school yr. Few endeavors demand as many rapid-fire decisions — or invite equally much second-guessing.

1 thing you definitely don't want to second-guess is where you choose to relocate. Whether y'all're a location-independent professional picking from the best places to live and work remotely or just looking for the ideal customs inside commuting distance of your job, this of import decision will set up your life's form for years to come.

Things to Consider When Choosing a Place to Live

Naturally, this choice involves a lot of considerations — more than a dozen in all. Some, like affordability and employment opportunities, are obvious and near-universal in their applicability. Others, like food choice and climate, might seem less of import next to dollars-and-cents issues like where you'll depict your paycheck and how far it'll take yous. But they tin can however dramatically bear on your quality of life and overall well-beingness in the long run.

Pro Tip: Does your job permit you to work remotely? If so, yous could work from anywhere in the world. Companies similar Remote Year volition assist fix you up with a identify to live, your own workspace, and unlike experiences inside the country you choose.

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1. Affordability

Wealth is relative. According to a 2020 study commissioned past Coin Crashers, more than 25% of Americans equate wealth with financial security, regardless of income. Some other 27% define wealth as a function of quality of life rather than finances.

Still, most of united states would adopt to have more money to spend and save — or at the very to the lowest degree, some breathing room in our budget. That's where affordability, arguably the almost critical factor for people who are moving, comes in.

In this context, "affordability" encompasses the total cost of living — not but housing costs, merely expenditures similar utilities, groceries, transportation, durable appurtenances, and health intendance. The less you lot need to spend to go by in good wellness, the more affordable your chosen home.

I've never lived in a truly unaffordable identify, but I've seen firsthand that seemingly pocket-sized changes in the cost of living can add up. Moving from a smaller manufacturing town in the industrial Midwest to a major metropolitan area with a predominantly service-based economy effectively cut my pay — which didn't change, thanks to a location-independent job — by twenty%, due mainly to higher housing and transportation costs.

Curious how far your salary might go in a new place? Use BestPlaces' cost of living calculator to become a crude estimate.

2. Taxes

It's impossible to escape taxes entirely, merely moving to the right place can trim your overall taxation brunt. For example, v states don't charge sales taxes: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon. Ix states waive income taxes on most or all sources of income: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.

Simply sales and income taxes aren't the merely types of taxes you should scrutinize. Multiple levies — such as property taxes, school taxes, gasoline taxes, and business concern taxes and fees — may affect your bottom line to a greater or lesser extent.

To quantify that touch on at your adjacent address, look to the Tax Foundation's state-local revenue enhancement brunt report. It calculates what taxpayers in all fifty states and the District of Columbia pay in state and local taxes.

The latest study, using information from financial twelvemonth 2017, identifies the District of Columbia as the highest-taxation jurisdiction in the United States, followed by New York, New Bailiwick of jersey, Connecticut, North Dakota, and Hawaii. Alabama has the everyman country-local revenue enhancement burden, followed past Tennessee, Arizona, South Carolina, and Oklahoma.

Fortunately, most states provide property tax credits or homestead exemptions to provide homeowners with some boosted tax relief.

3. Employment Opportunities

Employment opportunity remains a crucial and often decisive factor in decisions effectually where to alive. Just it's not quite as central to the question equally it once was.

Increasingly, lucrative employment is entirely location-contained. Digital nomads need but a serviceable workspace, reliable laptop, and speedy Internet connectedness to earn skilful coin from just about anywhere. Still, many individuals and families who choose to relocate do so for work-related reasons.

Employment opportunities vary from state to state and metropolis to city, and so spend some time researching the task markets in different areas. Start by analyzing quality employment opportunities inside your industry, and so determine where the highest concentration of these jobs is located.

If you're an investment broker (or aspire to be), you lot probably need to live in a big metropolis, like New York or Boston. If your skills are more portable — say, you're a instructor or auditor — you lot accept a much better run a risk of finding work wherever you decide to motion.

That said, income levels for jobs tin vary significantly from land to land. All other things beingness equal, workers tend to earn more in places where the cost of living is high or competition for their talent is fierce (or both).

For instance, a marketing managing director in San Diego, California, could earn 30% more than their counterpart in Table salt Lake Metropolis, Utah. Only the difference might exist a wash thanks to Southern California'southward sky-high housing and gas prices. In any outcome, exercise your research before yous motion — and ideally, find a task before you relocate.

iv. Existent Manor Value

With real estate values in constant flux, homebuyers tin can't afford to lack agreement of their new city's real estate market. At a minimum, research current home prices and short-term home price trends, the length of time for-sale homes sit on the market, whether and by how much homes sell higher up or below asking price, and likely long-term value trends.

Additionally, carefully review local housing cost trends. Use websites like Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin to become a handle on the local real estate marketplace. Or spring for a paid subscription to NeighborhoodScout if you're serious about getting the most value for your money (and certainly if you plan to invest in local real estate to earn passive income).

The cost of real manor is important even if yous have no plans to buy a home correct away. Yous still demand to brand room for rent in your monthly upkeep. Thoroughly researching prevailing rent prices earlier moving (or even choosing to motion) ensures you'll find an affordable place — or avoid moving to a new metropolis you really can't afford.

If you plan to stick around for a while, you might end up renting for a few years until you've saved upwards a sufficient down payment for your kickoff domicile. In buyer's markets, where the ratio of rents to dwelling values is low, you won't need to save as long for that downward payment. You'll begin building equity in your new home that much faster also.

5. Crime Rates & Statistics

No one wants to live in a high-crime area, merely that doesn't hateful everyone can live in a utopian gild where crime never happens. Use municipal or state resources to enquiry crime statistics in whatsoever urban center, town, or neighborhood you're eyeing.

For example, the New York City Police Department keeps a comprehensive database of citywide and precinct-level crime reports that — though quite data-dense — tin can help laypeople understand the crime rates and trends in different areas. Reputable private resource, like City-Data, tin help as well, just they're not e'er reliable.

But just because an area is prophylactic today doesn't guarantee it will be safe in the future — or vice versa. The long-term stability of a neighborhood can be a determining gene in how safe your surroundings are.

Also, consider the development trajectory of a item location every bit you narrow downwardly your choices. For example, while gentrification has serious downsides, such as the deportation of depression-income residents, localized prosperity also tends to stand for with lower violent criminal offense rates, according to data compiled by the U.Southward. Department of Housing and Urban Evolution.

half dozen. Proximity to Family & Friends

If you value time spent with family and close friends, you might desire to think twice most moving too far from them. Driving across country lines to reunite for the holidays (or just considering) takes fourth dimension, and flight is both a source of stress and a not-insignificant strain on tight budgets.

If you want a modify of pace or scenery that doesn't have you too far out of pocket, consider nearby college or vacation towns with potent, diverse local economies.

7. Climate

For many of us, climate is a critical quality-of-life consideration. If yous savour winter sports, set up in a place that has them in abundance — or at least where they're physically possible. Call up Colorado or Vermont, not Texas or Georgia.

By the aforementioned token, if y'all adopt the beach to the slopes and desire to be able to commute by bike comfortably in January, so the Sunday Belt is but correct for you.

It's worth noting that climate impacts more than just our physical condolement, mental health, hobbies, and what we wear. It very often shapes local economies and, by extension, employment and relocation decisions.

eight. Instruction System

For parents, the value of living near high-quality schools is articulate. But even single folks and couples without children need to consider the local didactics system when choosing where to live.

All other things being equal, home values tend to ascent faster (and from a higher baseline) in good school districts than in otherwise comparable locales with challenged schools. And according to a report published in the Federal Reserve Banking company of St. Louis Review, the trend is even more pronounced in the best schoolhouse districts. Living in a lower-quality school zone a rock'southward throw from a much better district where comparable homes sell for 25% to fifty% more than than houses on my cake, I've seen this play out in my own life.

You can apply nonprofit websites like GreatSchools and SchoolDigger to assess school quality in the cities, towns, or neighborhoods you're considering.

To exist sure, some better-off families in my neighborhood pour what they save (and then some) on their mortgages into private school tuition. Others take advantage of state and municipal school selection programs to enroll their kids in college-performing schools.

Merely many families tin can't beget individual school tuition or have other objections to private schooling, such every bit a lack of racial and cultural diversity. And school choice programs like vouchers and open up enrollment take significant drawbacks, such equally competition for slots in adept out-of-district schools and limited schoolhouse-provided transportation (busing) in some places. As a result, the only realistic option for many lower-income families is enrollment in underperforming local public schools.

That doesn't hateful you should automatically gravitate to better schoolhouse districts. If you lot don't accept kids and are pretty sure you won't before moving again, then you'll likely discover ameliorate housing bargains in lower-quality districts.

9. Culture

If you prefer proximity to world-class museums and theaters, music venues, professional sports teams, and a diverse array of restaurants serving cuisine from every corner of the world, you'll naturally want to live in a big city or its suburbs. But if you enjoy outdoor activities that crave ample space or proximity to nature, such equally hunting and camping, or want enough of property to heighten crops and livestock, you should stick to the broad-open spaces.

Major metropolitan areas do take cultural amenities and opportunities that far outstrip smaller cities' and rural areas'. Just there's enough gray area to satisfy folks who crave both.

The semi-rural exurban communities fringing most major U.S. metro areas feature a mix of housing styles — big-lot "estates" or ranchettes, traditional suburban developments, and higher-density housing around older downtowns that predate the inflow of sprawl. And they're typically available at comparatively affordable price points. They're also close enough to comfortably support weekend trips into the urban center without the added cost of an overnight hotel stay.

That said, exurban living isn't for everyone. Many of united states of america really are happier in isolated minor cities and towns far from the nearest big city. Others only tin can't fathom living in neighborhoods without sidewalks or corner stores or dozens of bars and restaurants within walking distance.

Non all urban, suburban, exurban, or rural communities are interchangeable. Each is influenced by its unique demographic and cultural makeup. That'southward vitally important and perhaps decisive for members of ethnic, cultural, or religious groups who adopt to live among others like them — whether in an otherwise anonymous suburb populated by contempo immigrants from a item state or a shut-knit religious enclave in a largely secular big city.

10. Commute Time & Public Transportation Options

Despite the increasing popularity and practicality of working from dwelling house, explosive suburban and exurban growth continues to increment average commute times and time spent in traffic.

These issues are specially acute in loftier-cost littoral metropolises like the San Francisco Bay Area and greater New York City. In these areas, high housing prices in the urban core and surrounding suburbs compel hordes of "farthermost commuters" to travel more than 90 minutes, fifty miles, or both — each way — betwixt comparatively affordable homes and downtown workplaces.

Long commutes are less stressful and potentially less costly, if no less time consuming, in major metro areas with good public transportation options for commuters. Though the United States' regional public transportation infrastructure lags behind much of the rest of the developed earth's, commuting by passenger vehicle or track is a realistic choice in about larger cities.

If you prefer not to drive to piece of work every mean solar day and can't work from home, make sure the neighborhoods or suburbs you're considering have robust public transit that runs when you need it. And use Walk Score to gauge your new neighborhood's walkability — a proxy for how easy it is to get effectually when you're non stuck at the office.

eleven. Food Options

For those disinclined to maintain a home vegetable garden, unreliable (or nonexistent) access to fresh produce is a significant drawback of rural living. In rural areas, the nearest grocery store that stocks high-quality produce might well be in the outer suburbs of the nearest large city. Ironically, the nearest farmers market place might exist in the nearest big town too.

And for logistical reasons and due to low need, grocery commitment services that bring fresh produce to urban and suburban residents' doorsteps tend not to serve thinly populated regions.

Of course, if yous have a green thumb, you'll want to live in a place that affords enough of room to practice information technology. A small container garden is fine for hobbyists and home cooks looking to acme up their fresh herb supplies, merely fully replicating your grocery store's produce aisle (during the growing season, at least) requires thousands of square anxiety of raised beds.

12. Boondocks or City Size

Exercise you prefer the comforting cloak of anonymity to the glare of the small-town spotlight? Y'all're a natural fit for large-urban center life.

Or do you savor seeing folks you know around town every day and patronizing businesses whose proprietors know exactly what you want? You're a small-town person at heart.

Can you see the appeal of both? Possibly you'd do best in a suburban community that'south big enough to disappear into but close-knit enough for your liking.

But think that your preferences may well change. With age, the familiarity and solidarity of a close-knit small town could come to outweigh the promise and possibility of a bigger, more than sprawling community.

13. Health Care Facilities

Everyone deserves admission to affordable, high-quality health care. This issue is especially resonant for families with immature children, folks nearing retirement age, and people with chronic wellness weather condition.

Generally speaking, major metropolitan areas have more health care choice and coverage than thinly populated parts of the country, though localized disparities are quite common within metro areas.

Smaller towns and cities with major inquiry universities or hospitals typically punch above their weight as well. According to The Street, the two best U.S. cities for wellness care admission are Rochester, Minnesota (dwelling of the Mayo Clinic), and Burlington, Vermont (habitation of the highly rated Academy of Vermont Health Network).

14. Proximity to an Airport

If yous travel a lot for business organisation, pleasure, or both, you demand easy admission to a major drome.

Many smaller cities take regional airports with regular service to big-metropolis hubs. Merely flights out of these airports can be less reliable, especially in places with frequent conditions-related delays or cancellations. And door-to-door travel times are invariably longer due to required plane changes. I spent several years in a pocket-sized, isolated urban center with just a scattering of scheduled commercial flights per day, and let me tell you: It gets erstwhile.

Similarly, consider the time and expense involved in getting to and from the airdrome. If you live in an exurban or rural area an hour or more from the nearest commercial aerodrome, the near efficient way to get to the airport probably involves a personal vehicle. And unless yous have a doting family member willing to drop yous off, that ways parking at the airport.

That'due south a costly prospect. A week in a long-term lot tin easily gear up you back $150, $200, or more. For example, long-term terminal parking at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport costs $24 per 24-hour interval, or $168 per calendar week. It'south even more than expensive at San Diego International Airport, at $32 per day, or $224 per calendar week (though lower rates are bachelor at certain terminals if you book alee).

If you live closer to the airport, you have more affordable options: taxis, rideshare, public transportation, or — best of all — a gratuitous ride from a friend or family unit member.

Final Discussion

I've moved enough to accept no illusions about the magnitude of the chore. Fifty-fifty cross-town moves are stressful and logistically complicated. Moving across land lines, let alone international borders, is a truly heroic undertaking.

There's one silver lining among all this stress: Though saying goodbye to the people and places you've come up to appreciate never gets easier, the process of moving gets a picayune more painless each time.

And because it occurs early on on and sets the tone for what'southward to come up, choosing the right place to move is one of the most crucial parts of that procedure. If you can nail down most or all the relevant considerations before packing your beginning box, you'll have that much less to worry nigh when crunch time hits.

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Source: https://www.moneycrashers.com/where-should-i-live-decide-best-places/