Relocation

I’m betting it’s Richmond’s low cost of doing business, laid-back lifestyle, and cool cultural and recreational destinations that led Forbes.com in late 2009 to rank Richmond number 65 on its list of “Best Bang-for-the-Buck Cities.” And though the Richmond region has taken its lumps like everywhere else in the U.S. during this recent financial downturn, it’s also well positioned for the future. Indeed, Forbes.com also named Richmond one of America’s fastest-recovering cities in November 2009, and in a study by Manpower reported in Business Week in June 2009, Richmond was the sixth best place in the country to start over.

If the Richmond region’s sensible cost of living (slightly above average for the country as a whole, but much lower than Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., for instance), stress-free commuting, diverse economy, recreational opportunities, and cultural amenities haven’t quite persuaded you to make the move, let me try another tack. Within Richmond, you can live in a riverside condo downtown, a converted warehouse loft, a Victorian townhome, on an acre in an established, tree-filled neighborhood, in a charming Arts and Crafts home, or along the river—and every sort of situation in between. Extend your range into the counties and you can reside on a horse farm, or in a home dripping with character in an established neighborhood, a no-maintenance apartment, townhome, or a single-family home in a planned community near shopping.

Because of Virginia’s independent-city structure, cities are separate entities from counties, and each locality has its own government, schools, tax rates, etc. Residents take advantage of the region’s boundless amenities regardless of lines on a map—living, working, shopping, playing, and eating all over. It’s the politicians who haven’t always figured out how to get past boundaries and cooperate.

Though home sales and prices did dip here like everywhere else, Richmond real estate never suffered the huge declines that some other areas did in recent years. And things are looking up. The fourth quarter of 2009 showed strong growth in Metro Richmond, with the number of homes sold up 38 percent over the same period in 2008.