Best Location to Move to for Raising Kids in the US (Virginia Example)
- Adam Garrett
- Mar 3
- 5 min read
Virginia ranked #5 in Forbes "Best & Worst States to Raise a Family" (2024). While the rankings will vary, Wallethub has family-friendly rankings by state and by year, Safehome has family-friendly rankings by state as well.
That said, it highly depends on your own family situation, where you live in a state, and what you value.
Tips:
Carefully Weigh the Decision to Limit the Number of Moves Based on Negative Impact of Too Many Moves
Per Moving to a New Town: The Impact on Kids (Psychology Today), "One longitudinal study of data gathered in Amsterdam found that teenagers who moved a lot were more likely to suffer from stress, fatigue, irratibility, depression, sleep difficulties, and other psychosocial issues as adults. A University of Virginia study showed that introverts who moved a lot as children died earlier as adults. Other researchers have found that frequent or recent movers performed worse in school and were more likely to misbehave, abuse drugs, or engage in sexually promiscuous behavior."
Get Advice from a Real Estate Agent or Broker who is Honest & Highly Knowledgeable
Often, advice from agents and brokers about where to move will be influenced significantly by bias toward the coverage area where that agent works if you're considering locations both within their coverage area and away from it. Even if an agent covers an area, if they're far from it, they may still have a bias toward areas closer to them that they know better. That's one of the reasons why it's critically important to choose an honest agent when purchasing.
Agent knowledge on areas and on resources to direct you to about areas varies substantially. Working with an agent who has plenty of resources to help guide you through an area (i.e. SE VA) and provide resources on factors to consider when determining the best area online is highly beneficial. One mistake many buyers make is ruling out agents who aren't close but who cover an area very well, no matter the volume of area-centric resources the agent or broker has. It's nice to work with someone who lives in the same neighborhood you're targeting, but other agents may offer a lot more comprehensively.
Here are some resources to help you make a decision if you're considering a move:
Niche
Niche offers a algorithm based way to locate potential options geared toward families.
They also have some filters available. You can narrow based on public schoools, cost of living, population density, etc. That said, keep in mind that no location in Virginia as of 3/3/26 triggers their highest cost of living threshold, which appears to be around 2% of the total US. Likewise, only around 2% of the US triggers their "D" grade for schools, and less than 1% of locations in VA.
Central & Eastern Virginia Example:
One problem I find is that many locations are unlisted, i.e. >95% of locations on this map when the map view is narrowed down to this suburban & rural area of VA:
Opportunity Atlas
OA is a great resource, and you can look by city/county or by smaller areas:
Alternatives
BestPlaces has a move option where you can shift your importance in various qualities, but some locations are missing, even one of the top counties in Virginia for public education by some measures, York County.
https://www.city-data.com/ has some great information on a wide variety of factors, including color-coded maps at various levels based on issues like:
median household income
Unemployment
Population density
Living Costs
Median house or condo value
& many more
Here are some factors to focus on to help you make a decision if you're considering a move:
One of the most significant factors when determining where to move, for all buyers, is house cost. A big mistake that a lot of buyers purchasing in low-cost areas make is not knowing about the negative impact that it could have on their family due to related factors. For instance, the lower the median house cost in a location, the lower the median income will tend to be.
Employment Opportunities & Unemployment Rates
Moving to a place where your skill set is well-suited if a job falls through & where the unemployment rates are low is highly beneficial. One of the reasons for that is due to the cost of moving, especially if you need to sell and buy another property. Conversely, the longer you own a house somewhere under typical circumstances, the more positive the net worth impact it will tend to have.
Median Income
Those who are in retirement who decide to purchase in a low-cost area have much less to lose than those who are about to have a family because of the impact of the median area income on children's likely future income. For those in retirement, who are taking social security payments & not actively working, the median income of an area isn't as big of a deal. They no longer need a higher income that typically comes with a higher cost of living to support higher social security payments when they retire. Income isn't everything, but a wide variety of positive factors correspond with higher median area incomes, like better education & much more.
School Districts & Private Schools
The best place for checking rankings of private schools, in my opinion, is Niche. Many of the other big places to check school districts either don't rank or grade private schools at all or only have a small footprint of schools that they cover.
Public schools offer more options for checking ratings and rankings, and I suggest checking more than one score:
GreatSchools -Here’s how to interpret the GreatSchools rating scale:
1–4: Performing below the state average
5–6: Performing around the state average
7–10: Performing above the state average
Niche - Their scale is alphabetic rather than numeric, which can be confusing. A B (50 percentile) is 17% of all schools, while a B+ is 13% of all schools. Here are numeric equivalents to their scores based on my calculations when the top 10% equals a 9.5, bottom 10% equals a .5, etc.
(they also offer a solid school districts ranking, i.e. Virginia school districts ranked by Niche)
Image courtesy Niche
Niche Numeric Equivalents | Niche Raw Scores | % equivalent calculation | individual % total | 100%- bottom of pack | total % of all covered thus far |
10 | A+ | 98.75% | 2.50% | 97.50% | 2.50% |
9.4 | A | 93.75% | 7.50% | 90.00% | 10.00% |
7.4 | B+ | 73.50% | 13.00% | 67.00% | 33.00% |
5.9 | B | 58.50% | 17.00% | 50.00% | 50.00% |
4 | B- | 41.50% | 17.00% | 33.00% | 67.00% |
2.7 | C+ | 26.50% | 13.00% | 20.00% | 80.00% |
1.5 | C | 15.00% | 10.00% | 10.00% | 90.00% |
.6 | C- | 6.25% | 7.50% | 2.50% | 97.50% |
0.2 | D+ | 1.85% | 1.30% | 1.20% | 98.80% |
.1 | D | 0.90% | 0.60% | 0.60% | 99.40% |
0 | D- | 0.30% | 0.60% | 0.00% | 100.00% |
School Digger (they also offer a solid school districts ranking, i.e. Virginia school districts ranked)
Public Universities
Niche has a solid option for the top public universities. Their top 25 in the US includes 3 Virginia schools as of 3/3/26:
UVA comes in at #3, Virginia Tech #14, & William & Mary #23.
With their map feature, you can see a better picture of state public schools as well:
US News & World Report also has a good option for ranking public universities, ranking UVA #4 among national public universities & tieing Virginia Tech & William and Mary at #21 as of 3/3/26.
The Princeton Review has a classic ranking scale on the subject as well, ranking UVA #2, William & Mary #11, & Virginia Tech #39 as of 3/3/26.
Private Universities
Most of the sites that rank public universities above have rankings for private universities as well.
Crime
While real estate agents are legally limited in what they can say regarding crime, there are some great online resources on crime, like Spotcrime & Crimegrade.
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