2023 Places With The Lowest Cost of Living In Virginia: New Report

VIRGINIA — The Commonwealth is known for the quality of its schools, its strong economy, and the beauty of its mountains.

But its low cost of living? Not so much.

That's not to say there aren't any cheap places to live in the state, just that you will have to travel outside the suburbs of Northern Virginia to find them.

Rankings website Niche.com did all that legwork, and has just published its "2023 Places with the Lowest Cost of Living in Virginia." The communities on the list are a little less familiar than those home to the state's best schools.

As you would expect, there's a more-or-less inverse relationship between a neighborhood's overall quality and the cost of living there. Niche analysts threaded the Quality of Life/Cost of Living needle to determine the best of the least expensive places to live in Virginia.

These towns are mainly small and rural, but neither will you have to choose between paying your mortgage or buying groceries while living there.

At the top of the rankings is Springville, population of 1,223, in Tazewell County in southwestern Virginia. It was rated A for "Cost of Living," B for public schools and a B grade overall.

Here's Niche's Top 25 places in Virginia with the lowest cost of living:

1. Springville
2. Woodlawn
3. Horse Pasture
4. Bassett
5. Appalachia
6. Cana
7. Narrows
8. Covington
9. Norton
10. Bluefield
11. Raven
12. Stanleytown
13. Galax
14. Lebanon
15. Chatmoss
16. Collinsville
17. Chase City
18. Elliston
19. Pearisburg
20. Martinsville
21. Ridgeway
22. Big Stone Gap
23. Weber City
24. Clifton Forge
25. Coeburn