Virginia on my Mind

The Old Dominion is ranked the fourth-best state in which to make a living.

4/20/11 2:08 PM

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Somewhere within the pursuit of happiness lies the necessity to make a living. I find myself more often than not pursuing the purse than happiness. Happiness comes easy: a good, cold lager; my three-year-old’s astute observation of a harpy eagle; floating the Rappahannock hooking striped bass. Making a living is the hard part.

The fact that Virginia is now ranked the fourth-best state in which to make this living should give Virginians pride. Money-Rates.com calculated the list using average state wages, the state unemployment rate, the state tax rate and the state cost of living.

I can personally vouch that Virginia beats out New York and New Jersey (ranked 30th and 36th respectively, but no disrespect, eh? OH!)—the two other states where I’ve done time making a dime. In NYC, I had a good salary (but a horrible commute), yet the cost of living was prohibitive to any real enjoyment of that salary. Guinness at lunchtime was only temporary “enjoyment.” In New Jersey, the tax rates were so high I’d constantly question where all my tax dollars were spent. Air-filtering systems?

Richmond is home for me. Born and raised. So the move back to VA was a no-brainer. Greener pastures. Balanced state budgets. I still can’t quite understand why the Commonwealth sells liquor—side-arm to lottery gambling?

But in my day-to-day operations as a real estate agent and property management administrator, I take calls every week from people who are thinking of moving to Virginia, people who are interested in buying or starting a business in Virginia, and one thing is for sure—they are keenly aware of the opportunities here compared to their current home state.

They all talk about the bang for the buck here, the good schools, low taxes and the high number of tattoos and piercings.

I have an easy sell for the Commonwealth of Virginia, partly because my story is one of the current migrations to Virginia, but also because Virginia sells itself.

Between the mix of business incentives and the natural state of the area, it is easy to live and work in Virginia. If you are centrally located in Richmond (aka RVA, the cool way to say Richmond, VA) then you will get the best of all worlds: city life downtown, night life in The Bottom and back (note: follow green bus at safe distance), franchise-safe outings in the West End, home brews in the Southside, Dutch Gap boating, Henricus for the ‘rect-of-us’ and the not-to-miss locales in Northside like McCook’s.

Tag Topics: Raffi Bandazian

The Old Dominion is ranked the fourth-best state in which to make a living.

by Raffi Bandazian

4/20/11 2:08 PM

Latest Comments

Virgina Living

Interesting post and comments. I've been thinking about visiting Virginia and checking out the <a href="http://sheeransothebysrealty.com/historic-properties.htm">colonial williamsburg real estate</a>, golf courses, and history and see if it's a good place for my grandparents to retire. 4th best? Not bad.

Posted by Corey Anderson June 07, 2011 17:23:41
Virginia on my Mind

Great Article. Virginia has always been home to me and I love it. We are within a few hours of mountains and beaches. Also,after reading your article and living south of the river I will have to look into this home brewing.

Posted by Dana Morgan April 27, 2011 06:51:52
virginia

Virginia was the worst mistake of my life. yes in fact it is greener and nicer here, but the employment mentality is horrible. this is a right to work state, so if you move here you are putting your whole livelyhood into your job to be paid pennies. I would not suggest " the commonwealth" as a great place to live. its more of a burden. Virginia only cares about how much they can tax you. I would rather live in new york or new jersey and have job , home , food , transportation security, than to be here were you are looked at and immediatly judge before presenting yourself and further more looked at as a slave.

Posted by unhappy with virginia April 23, 2011 15:09:28
Richmond, VA (living)

Great article. Being from NYC (Brooklyn) and making the move to Richmond, I can attest to the points made in the article. Very well stated. I'm glad that I made Richmond my home as well!!

Posted by Sean Jones April 22, 2011 16:03:23