Relocation is something that has been on our minds a lot lately, as there’s nothing of significance to tie us to this area.  The house we rent is for sale, so we know we’ll be moving sooner or later, and we have no particular desire to stay here in this county.  (We’d really like to move closer to family, but that presents some logistical difficulties.  We can’t find a house to rent, and we can’t buy a house without a job.  The idea of staying with my parents while Michael gets established in a job has come up, but they have an awfully small house to try to integrate another entire family with young children into, so that doesn’t sound appealing.)

If you, too, are considering relocation, certain online tools may be of help.  Two in particular that I like are Sperling’s Best Places, and the various cost of living comparison calculators.

Sperling’s Best Places will tell you about whatever location you look up.  Enter the city name or the zip code, and it will tell you about the housing, demographics, etc.  For example, if you’ve been looking at Branson homes for sale, you can look up Branson.  It will tell you (among other things) that the population as of 2007 was 7,435.  There are 14 pupils per teacher, and the school system spends $4,981 per year, per student.  It has a climate “comfort level” of 30 out of 100.

You can use this to compare locations, too.  For example, the median home cost in my current location is $335,000, while in Branson it’s only $259,000.

If you already know where you’re likely to move, you can compare it with Sterling’s, and/or you can use one of the many cost-of-living comparison sites.  For example, CityRating.com says that Branson would be several thousand dollars less expensive than where we currently live (no surprise! lol).