The Best Places to Live in Virginia
Bluemont, Pulaski, and Woodstock are some of the best places to live and buy a home in Virginia.
Written by Patrick Price
Reviewed by Melanie Reiff
Beautiful nature, great universities, and a stable economy are just a few of the factors that make Bluemont, Covington, and Chatmoss some of the best places to live in
Virginia
. If you’re a fan of rolling hills, towering mountains, brilliant autumn colors, and long sandy beaches, then Virginia might just be the ideal place for you to find your next home. Apart from natural splendor, Virginia also offers some of the most respected universities and public schools in the country—not to mention the thriving economy and rich history!
The only real question is, where in Virginia would be the best place to live? To help answer that question,
Jerry
—the car
and home insurance
comparison super app
—has done a bit of research and compiled this quick list of the best places to live in Virginia.RECOMMENDED
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What makes a good place to live?
Before we start listing Virginia’s best places to live, it’s important that we specify just what traits make for a good place to live.
There are a lot of factors that contribute to a place's livability, such as affordability, safety, economy, local culture, and much more. Everything from the cost of groceries to the weather could be considered.
To save you some research time, we’ve gone ahead and found the important details for six of Virginia's best towns to call home: Bluemont, South Riding, Pulaski, Covington, Woodstock, and Chatmoss.
For convenience, we’ve divided those six towns into three categories—the best places to live for families, the most affordable places to live, and the best places to buy a house. In order to make these evaluations, we have compared the following traits for each town:
- Median household income
- Median home price
- Cost of living
- Quality of schools
- Crime rates
- Healthcare
- Average commute times
- FEMA risk index ratings
The best places for families to live in Virginia
Looking for a home for your entire family is very different from looking for a home just for yourself. Certain factors become dramatically more important, such as the area’s education systems, crime rates, and community atmosphere are some of the most critical factors when looking for a family home.
Using these variables, we’ve been able to identify the two best places for families to live in Virginia. Take a look!
Bluemont
Location: Loudoun County
Population: 8,439
Median household income: $186,897
Median home price: $778,455
About 50 miles northeast of
Washington D.C
, you’ll find Bluemont—a scenic little village nestled in the foothills of the Blue Mountain Range. With a population of only 8,439 and a violent crime rate of only 22.5, Bluemont is one of the safest towns, in one of the safest states, in the entire country. As far as safety goes, you couldn’t ask for a better place to bring up a family!
Loudoun County public schools also have an incredible reputation for excellent quality education, as well as an incredible 97.6% high school graduation rate!
As for the atmosphere and local culture around Bluemont, you’ll find plenty of enriching things to do—assuming you like the great outdoors! Bluemont is very much a nature lover’s sort of a place with sprawling mountain woodlands, parks, and trailheads everywhere.
South Riding
Location: Loudoun County
Population: 31,515
Median household income: $158,996
Median home price: $528,400
Not too far from Bluemont, on the western edge of Washington D.C, lies South Riding—another of the state’s best places for families to live.
While it’s technically a suburb of D.C, and it enjoys proximity to all that the big city has to offer, South Riding itself is a quiet, mid-sized community with an extremely low violent crime rate of only 12.1!
Like Bluemont, South Riding is part of the Loudoun County Public Schools district, and so it also boasts the 97.6% high school graduation rate. In general, the area is regarded as having some of the finest public schools in the state, such as Little River Elementary School and Freedom High School (which recently received the prestigious Gold College Success Award).
Not to mention, with its proximity to the city, families have the option to send their children to one of the capital’s exceptional private schools, such as Georgetown Day School, if they can afford it.
The most affordable places to live in Virginia
For most of us, the cost of living is one of the most important factors when choosing a place to live.
Statewide, Virginia has an overall cost of living rating of 103.7—meaning, on average, everyday expenses are going to be 3.7% higher than the national average. That may not be a huge amount, but it adds up pretty quickly!
To minimize your day-to-day expenses, you may want to consider moving to one of the more affordable places in Virginia that we’ve listed below. They were selected due to their lower-than-average cost of living as well as their average commute times (which dramatically impact residents’ monthly expenses via fuel costs).
Pulaski
Location: Pulaski County
Population: 8,744
Median household income: $46,312
Median home price: $107,900
First up, we have
Pulaski
—a small town near Claytor Lake State Park
. Pulaski is, by far, one of the cheapest places to live in Virginia. With a median home price of only $107,900, it has one of the most accessible housing markets nationwide as well. Overall, the cost of living index in Pulaski is a jaw-dropping 75.3, which is one of the lowest you’re ever likely to see. The housing cost of living is particularly low at 36.4. If you’re looking for a new home in a place where rent and mortgages are cheap, look no further than Pulaski!
As for the average commute time, it’s 19.5 minutes in Pulaski—which is just a bit less than the national average of 26.6.
You might think that the low cost of living might be indicative of economic hardship and high crime rates. Often this is the case, but not in Polaski. The violent crime rate there is only 12.7 (compared to the nationwide rate of 22.7).
Plus you’ll find plenty of ways to enjoy yourself in Gatewood Park, Dora Trail, and countless other nature-based attractions!
Covington
Location: Allegheny County
Population: 5,653
Median household income: $38,176
Median home price: $81,900
The other town you should consider, if you’re looking for affordable places to live in Virginia, is
Covington
. Covington has the most affordable home-price-to-income ratio in the entire state at 1.7x, and the fifth most affordable rent-to-income ratio at 54.0x.
Moreover, the overall cost of living index in Covington is only 70.2. That’s about as affordable as it gets! Plus, the average commute time is only 16.1 minutes, so no spending huge amounts on gas each month!
“When we added a new car to our family, we were shocked at how high our current insurer was going to hike our rates. We usedJerryfor some comparison shopping and are now saving around $1000 a year. Thank you, Jerry!” —Darius P.
Best places to buy a house in Virginia
If you’re looking to buy a house and set down roots, you’ll want to consider the housing market in the area very carefully. The climate can also have a surprisingly significant impact on your investment if the area is often hit by natural disasters. To get a good sense of how threatened by severe weather an area is, we used the FEMA Risk Index.
Woodstock
Location: Shenandoah
Population: 5,210
Median household income: $64,188
Median home price: $215,100
Not only does Woodstock have much lower-than-average home prices, but it’s also a growing town. The population grew 0.3% in the last year, which has led the average home price to go up as well (up 5.6% in the last year). This means that if you bought a home in Woodstock now, it would appreciate in value very quickly.
Not only is real estate in Woodstock a sound investment, but the cost of living index is also pretty low at 91.5.
The FEMA Risk Index in Woodstock is also pretty low at 11.16—which is technically higher than the national average, but still quite low.
Chatmoss
Location: Henry County
Population: 1,544
Median household income: $85,600
Median home price: $195,400
In south-central Virginia, there’s a very small town called Chatmoss that offers potential homebuyers an ideal market.
With an incredibly low cost of living index at only 82.3 and median home prices below $200,000, it won’t cost you too much to move in and set up shop!
The FEMA Risk Index is also quite low at 9.54, which should save you some money when it comes time to start shopping for homeowners insurance.
How to find affordable homeowners and car insurance in Virginia
Whichever town in
Virginia
you choose as your new home, you’ll need good homeowners
or renters insurance
, depending on what kind of dwelling you’ll be moving into. Assuming you have a car, you’ll also need dependable
auto insurance
. With the right insurance coverage, you can rest easy knowing that your possessions—and your new life in Virginia—are protected. Of course, you don’t want to have to pay a fortune each month for all that coverage—and you won’t have to!
The app is so effective, as a matter of fact, that it saves users an average of $800+ a year!
“Jerrywas wonderful! I used it for my auto and renters policies. I trusted it so much that I signed up my homeowners insurance under Jerry as well. All of the agents are amazingly nice and knowledgeable.” —Mary Y.
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