Relocating to Richmond VA from Portland: Cost of Living, Neighborhoods & What to Expect
Familiar houses, a completely different sky – an honest look at the cross-country move
Moving to Richmond, Virginia from Portland, Oregon is a move where the houses feel familiar and the weather does not. Portland’s craftsman bungalows and American Foursquares are strikingly similar to Richmond’s, which is a genuine and underrated comfort, though Richmond adds brick rowhouses and Colonial Revival stock that Portland does not have. The climate is the headline and the hardest adjustment. Portland gives you mild grey drizzly winters, a genuinely dry summer and low humidity. Richmond gives you four sharply distinct seasons, hot humid summers with near-daily afternoon thunderstorms, and short winters with occasional disruptive ice. Most Portland transplants say the humidity is the single hardest thing to get used to, and Richmond gets far more summer rain than Portland does. On taxes it is a real trade: Oregon has no statewide sales tax but does levy income tax, while Virginia levies income tax and sales tax and adds a local personal property tax on vehicles that Oregonians have never paid. You give up Mount Hood, the Columbia Gorge, the Pacific coast and one of the best bike and transit cultures in the country. You gain genuine whitewater running through the middle of Richmond on the James, the Blue Ridge about two hours west and the Atlantic about two hours east. Buyers researching moving from Portland to Richmond VA, Richmond vs Portland cost of living and Richmond VA neighborhoods will find the detail below. The Mission Realty Team serves Richmond, Henrico, Chesterfield, Goochland, Hanover and Powhatan.
Table of Contents
- Why People Make the Portland to Richmond Move
- The Climate Contrast: Grey Drizzle to Four Sharp Seasons
- Housing Stock: A Genuine Point of Familiarity
- Neighborhood Analogues: Alberta and Laurelhurst to Richmond
- Bikes, Transit and Richmond’s Car Dependence
- Taxes and Registration: No Sales Tax to Sales Tax Plus a Vehicle Tax
- The Job Market and Professional Licensing
- Outdoors: Losing Hood and the Gorge, Gaining the James
- Food, Culture and Daily Life
- What to Do First: A Practical Relocation Sequence
- Frequently Asked Questions
This is a genuinely long move, and the two cities are less alike than they first appear. Portland and Richmond are both mid-size, both built on rivers, both proud of their independent food and drink culture, and both full of early-twentieth-century houses that look remarkably like each other. Walk down a street in Richmond’s Northside and you could plausibly be in Northeast Portland: the same craftsman bungalows, the same deep front porches, the same Foursquares with hipped roofs.
Then you step outside in July and you know exactly where you are. Richmond’s climate is the thing that separates these two places, and we want to be blunt about it because it is the number one reason Portland transplants either love this move or regret it. Portland’s weather is mild, grey and drizzly for much of the year with a reliably dry, beautiful summer. Richmond’s is a four-season climate with a summer that is hot, wet and genuinely humid.
We are a licensed brokerage, so we are not going to quote market statistics that go stale between when we publish and when you read. What follows is the durable stuff: the climate honestly in both directions, how the houses compare, where the neighborhood analogues line up, and what changes about taxes and daily life. The Mission Realty Team works with relocating buyers across Richmond, Henrico, Chesterfield, Goochland, Hanover and Powhatan, and if you want current pricing in any neighborhood named below, call us and we will pull a live list.
Why Do People Move From Portland to Richmond?
Most of the Portland transplants we work with are moving for one of three reasons. The first is family. Richmond sits in the middle of the East Coast, and people with parents, siblings or grown children in the Mid-Atlantic or the Southeast eventually get tired of a cross-country flight being the only way to see them.
The second is a specific job. Richmond’s economy is concentrated in state government, healthcare, finance and insurance, and those are the sectors that generate the transfers we see. The third is housing cost and the general arithmetic of what a household budget buys, though we will not quote figures on that and you should verify it against real properties rather than published averages.
The reason people hesitate is worth naming. Portland is a genuinely distinctive city, and Portlanders tend to know exactly what they like about it: the bike infrastructure, the transit, Mount Hood on a clear morning, the Gorge, the coast, the dry summer, the low humidity. Richmond is a good city with real strengths, and it does not replicate any of those specific things. Going in with clear eyes matters more on this move than on most.
The Climate Contrast: Grey Drizzle to Four Sharp Seasons
Start with what Portland has that Richmond does not: a genuinely dry summer and low humidity almost year round. Portland summers are warm, bright, comfortable and famously rainless for weeks at a stretch, and evenings cool off. That is the thing you are giving up, and there is no substitute for it here.
Richmond summers run from June well into September and they are hot and humid. Dew points stay high for months, so the air feels heavy long after sunset. Afternoon thunderstorms are close to a daily feature in July and August, often intense and short, and the remnants of tropical systems arrive in late summer and early fall. Air conditioning is not a comfort feature here, it is structural, and a Portland house without central air has no Richmond equivalent.
On rain, be careful with the stereotype. Richmond’s annual precipitation is in the same general range as Portland’s, but it arrives completely differently. Portland’s is frequent, light and cool, concentrated from October through May with the dry summer as the reward. Richmond’s comes in heavier bursts year round, and summer is a wet season. You will own fewer rain jackets and more umbrellas.
Winter goes the other way, and Richmond wins on sunshine. Winters here are short and brighter, with a real spring and a real fall that the Willamette Valley does not deliver. The caveat is ice: much of Richmond’s winter precipitation falls as freezing rain, and the heavy tree canopy means downed limbs and outages.
Housing Stock: A Genuine Point of Familiarity
Here is the good news, and it surprises people. Richmond and Portland built out in the same era with many of the same house types. Portland’s craftsman bungalows and American Foursquares have close Richmond cousins, particularly through the streetcar suburbs of Northside and Southside. Same front porches, same tapered porch columns, same built-in cabinetry, same clear-fir or oak floors, same 1,200 to 1,900 square foot footprint. If you have owned and maintained a 1920s Portland bungalow, you already know how a Richmond bungalow behaves.
Richmond then adds two categories Portland essentially lacks. The first is brick rowhouses, which define the Fan and much of Church Hill, built in continuous blocks with shared walls, high ceilings and long narrow floor plans. The second is a substantial Colonial Revival and Tudor stock in the Near West End, plus an enormous belt of 1950s through 1970s brick ranches and Capes across inner Henrico and inner Chesterfield. Newer construction sits further out toward Short Pump, Midlothian, Goochland and Powhatan.
Two physical differences matter. Brick is the regional default here rather than the exception, which helps on long-term maintenance and behaves differently from Portland’s wood siding. And full basements are much less common, because Virginia’s shallower frost line made crawl space foundations the norm, so plan for less storage and laundry on a main floor. On the other hand, seismic retrofitting is not a concern here the way it is in Portland, and you will not be asked about foundation bolting.
Neighborhood Analogues: Alberta and Laurelhurst to Richmond
Alberta and Hawthorne map onto Church Hill, Scott’s Addition and the Fan. What defines those Portland corridors is a walkable commercial spine, independent shops and restaurants, a creative culture and a mix of restored and in-progress housing on tight lots. Church Hill is Richmond’s oldest residential district, on a bluff above the river with genuine skyline views, cobblestone stretches and a strong preservation culture, and it has the closest feel to Alberta’s mix of grit and restoration. The Fan is the grandest version, with tree-lined avenues of rowhouses radiating from Monument Avenue and a commercial strip along Main and Cary that reads a lot like Hawthorne. Scott’s Addition is the industrial-conversion answer, a former warehouse district now packed with breweries, cideries, a distillery and lofts within a few walkable blocks, and it is the single easiest place in Richmond to meet people.
Laurelhurst and Eastmoreland map onto the Museum District, Bellevue and Forest Hill. These are the established, heavily canopied, settled neighborhoods with good period architecture and a quiet residential feel. The Museum District, anchored by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, is the most urban of the three, with a walkable commercial edge. Bellevue in Northside is the bungalow version, with a small commercial node on MacArthur Avenue that functions much like a Portland neighborhood main street. Forest Hill on the Southside is the closest match for anyone who loved living near Reed College and Eastmoreland’s park access, because it sits directly against Forest Hill Park and the James River Park System trails.
Bikes, Transit and Richmond’s Car Dependence
We will not soften this. If bike infrastructure and transit are central to how you live, Richmond is a clear step down from Portland and you should weigh that heavily.
Portland has MAX light rail, a streetcar, an extensive bus network, protected bike lanes, neighborhood greenways and a genuine culture of commuting by bicycle. Richmond has GRTC buses plus the Pulse, a bus rapid transit line running along Broad Street through the center of the city with dedicated lanes and stations. The Pulse is genuinely useful if you live and work along that corridor. There is no rail transit in the metro.
On bikes, Richmond is better than its reputation and worse than Portland. The city has built out bike lanes over the past decade, hosted a world cycling championship, and has a real recreational and racing community. The obstacles are topography, since Richmond is hilly at the fall line rather than flat, summer humidity that makes commuting by bike genuinely unpleasant for three months, and drivers who are less conditioned to expect cyclists than Portland drivers are.
What Richmond does offer is a growing trail network that is legitimately excellent for recreation. The James River Park System runs along both banks through the middle of the city with miles of singletrack, and the Virginia Capital Trail is a paved path running from downtown Richmond all the way to Williamsburg. Treat it as recreation infrastructure rather than commuting infrastructure and you will be pleasantly surprised.
Taxes and Registration: No Sales Tax to Sales Tax Plus a Vehicle Tax
Both states levy an income tax, so this is not a move from a taxed state to an untaxed one. Oregon’s structure leans heavily on income tax precisely because it has no statewide sales tax, and depending on where in the Portland area you lived you may also have been paying regional transit or supportive-housing taxes. Virginia levies a state income tax with no local income tax layer anywhere.
What arrives are two things Oregonians are not used to. The first is sales tax on nearly everything you buy, combining a state rate with a local add-on, which is a small daily friction more than a large expense but it takes months to stop being surprised at the register. The second is more significant: Virginia’s local personal property tax on vehicles. Each Virginia city and county assesses the vehicles garaged there every year, applies a locally set rate, and mails you an annual bill. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats and trailers can all be in scope. Virginia has a statewide relief program that offsets part of the bill on qualifying vehicles, but how much reaches you varies by locality.
We are not printing rates, because every locality sets its own annually. Contact the commissioner of the revenue for each city or county on your shortlist and ask for the current personal property tax rate, the current real estate tax rate, and how new residents are billed in their first partial year. One structural note: Oregon limits how fast assessed value can grow, while Virginia localities reassess toward market value on their own schedules, so your assessment here can move more than you are used to.
On registration: title and register with the Virginia DMV and get a Virginia license after establishing residency, then separately register those vehicles with your locality for personal property tax. Those are two different offices and the second is the step newcomers forget. Virginia also requires an annual safety inspection, which Oregon does not have.
The Job Market and Professional Licensing
Richmond’s economy is built on four pillars: state government, healthcare, finance and insurance, and higher education. Healthcare is anchored by VCU Health, Bon Secours and HCA Virginia. Finance and insurance include Capital One’s large West Creek campus in Goochland, Markel, Genworth and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, which is the headquarters of the Fifth District. CarMax, Altria and Dominion Energy are headquartered here. Add the Commonwealth of Virginia, VCU, the University of Richmond, Virginia State University and Virginia Union University, plus logistics driven by the Port of Virginia and the I-95 corridor.
Portland’s economy is shaped differently, and the honest gaps matter. There is no Richmond equivalent of the Hillsboro semiconductor cluster, and nothing like Portland’s concentration of athletic and outdoor apparel companies. If you work in chip fabrication, industrial design or footwear and apparel, verify that a specific role exists here before you list your Portland house. What Richmond has that Portland does not is depth in finance, insurance and government, plus commutable proximity to federal work in Washington. Healthcare, government and university professionals generally transfer well.
Outdoors: Losing Hood and the Gorge, Gaining the James
Let us be honest about the losses first, because they are real and specific. You lose Mount Hood, and with it alpine skiing about ninety minutes from your front door. You lose the Columbia River Gorge, one of the great day-hiking landscapes in the country. You lose the Pacific coast and the Cascades generally. Nothing on the East Coast substitutes for that scale of terrain, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.
What Richmond offers instead is unusual and genuinely good. The James River runs over the fall line straight through downtown, producing real whitewater rapids inside the city limits. The James River Park System spans both banks with Belle Isle, Pony Pasture, Buttermilk and North Bank, and miles of technical singletrack are accessible from residential streets. Very few American cities let you paddle rapids, mountain bike and then be back at your desk in twenty minutes.
Beyond the city, the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah National Park are about two hours west, with Skyline Drive and the Appalachian Trail, though the mountains are older, lower and greener than the Cascades. The Atlantic at Virginia Beach is about two hours east. There is skiing in Virginia and West Virginia, but adjust your expectations sharply downward from Hood.
Food, Culture and Daily Life
This is where the two cities are more alike than different, and Portland transplants are usually relieved. Richmond has a strong independent restaurant culture, chef-driven and concentrated in walkable pockets of the Fan, Church Hill, Jackson Ward, Carytown and Scott’s Addition, with serious Southern cooking and a substantial global mix along Broad Street and the Hull Street corridor. The craft beverage scene is genuinely comparable in spirit if not in scale: Scott’s Addition alone has a dense cluster of breweries, cideries, a distillery and a meadery within a few walkable blocks.
What Richmond does not have is Portland’s food cart culture, and there is no real equivalent to the pod model. Coffee is good here but it is not a civic obsession the way it is in Portland, and you should recalibrate.
On culture, Richmond holds up well. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is large, well regarded and free for general admission, and the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU, the Valentine, the American Civil War Museum, Maymont and Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden fill out the roster. The Richmond Folk Festival on the downtown riverfront is one of the largest free festivals of its kind in the country, and VCU’s arts programs keep the murals, galleries and small-venue music scene alive in a way Portlanders will recognize.
One honest note on daily life: Richmond is a smaller and more traditional city than Portland in its civic culture, and it sits in a region with a long and complicated history that is visible in its streets and museums. Many transplants find engaging with that history rewarding, but it is a different context from the Pacific Northwest.
What Should You Do First When Moving From Portland to Richmond?
Because this is a cross-country move, start earlier than you would otherwise. Eight to twelve weeks out, get pre-approved with a lender licensed in Virginia, since Virginia closings use a settlement agent and the process differs from Oregon’s escrow practice. At the same time, decide whether you are shopping in the City of Richmond or in one of the counties, because that single decision drives your tax rates, your school division and your house type more than anything else.
Contact the commissioner of the revenue in each locality for current real estate and personal property tax rates and first-year billing practice. If you have school-age children, contact the division directly, because Virginia’s countywide divisions work differently from Oregon’s district structure: Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, Goochland, Powhatan and Richmond City each run one division for the whole locality, with attendance zones inside it and specialty programs that admit by application well before the school year.
On arrival: Virginia driver’s license and vehicle titling at DMV, then register those vehicles with your locality for personal property tax, then register to vote, then get an E-ZPass, because the Powhite, the Downtown Expressway and the I-95 corridor all use it. Talk to a Virginia insurance agent early, and if the house is near the James or any creek, ask about flood zone designation, whether your lender will require flood insurance, and your wind and hurricane deductible. Tropical-remnant risk is a new category for Oregonians.
Finally, rent for six months if you can. One Richmond summer will teach you more about which neighborhood suits you – shade, elevation, breeze, drainage, commute – than a dozen scouting visits.
| Factor | Portland | Richmond | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summer | Dry, bright, low humidity, cool evenings | Hot and humid with daily thunderstorms | The hardest adjustment; AC is structural |
| Winter | Mild, grey, drizzly and long | Short and brighter; ice more than snow | More sunshine; plan for outages |
| Rain pattern | Frequent and light, dry summer | Heavier bursts year round, wet summer | Fewer rain jackets, more umbrellas |
| Housing types | Craftsman bungalows, Foursquares | The same, plus brick rowhouses and ranches | Genuine familiarity; brick is the default |
| Foundations | Basements common; seismic retrofits | Crawl spaces common; termite inspections | Different inspection list entirely |
| Sales tax | None statewide | State plus local sales tax | A daily friction to get used to |
| Vehicle tax | Registration fees only | Annual locally billed personal property tax | New recurring bill; verify the local rate |
| Transit | MAX light rail, streetcar, strong bus network | GRTC buses plus Pulse BRT on Broad Street | A real downgrade; plan on driving |
| Biking | Protected lanes, greenways, bike commuting | Improving lanes; excellent recreational trails | Recreation yes, commuting harder |
| Mountains and coast | Hood and the Gorge close; Pacific 90 minutes | Blue Ridge and Atlantic about 2 hours each | Smaller scale; whitewater in the city |
Frequently Asked Questions About Moving to Richmond VA from Portland
Is Richmond VA a good place to move from Portland Oregon?
For people moving toward East Coast family or a specific job in government, healthcare or finance, yes, but this move rewards clear eyes more than most. The genuine gains are a brighter winter, real four-season weather, a much more central East Coast position with Washington, the Blue Ridge and the Atlantic each about two hours away, and whitewater running through the middle of the city. The genuine losses are Mount Hood, the Columbia Gorge, the Pacific coast, the dry low-humidity summer and one of the best bike and transit cultures in the country. If those Portland specifics are the core of your life, weigh this carefully; if family or career is the driver, most transplants settle in well.
Is Richmond VA more humid than Portland?
Yes, dramatically, and nearly every Portland transplant names humidity as the single hardest part of the adjustment. Richmond sits close to the Atlantic and the Chesapeake Bay, and summer dew points stay high for months rather than for occasional stretches, which makes the air feel heavy long after sunset. The practical consequences are that air conditioning runs almost continuously from June into September, crawl spaces and attics need active moisture management, and outdoor work happens early in the morning. Most people acclimate over two or three summers, but the first one is a real shock coming from a low-humidity climate.
Does Richmond VA get more rain than Portland?
Richmond’s annual precipitation is in the same general range as Portland’s, but it arrives in a completely different pattern, and Richmond gets far more summer rain. Portland’s rain is frequent, light and cool, concentrated from roughly October through May with a famously dry summer as the payoff. Richmond’s comes in heavier convective bursts spread across the whole year, with near-daily afternoon thunderstorms in July and August and the remnants of tropical systems in late summer and early fall. Practically, you will own fewer rain shells and more umbrellas, and you will get soaked more thoroughly and less often.
Does Virginia have sales tax if Oregon does not?
Yes. Virginia levies a state sales tax with a local add-on, so you will be paying sales tax on nearly everything you buy, which is a genuine daily adjustment for Oregonians. It is more of a small ongoing friction than a large expense, but it takes most transplants several months to stop being surprised at the register. Groceries and certain other categories are taxed at a reduced rate. Rates change, so confirm the current state and local combined rate with the Virginia Department of Taxation rather than relying on a figure in an article.
Does Virginia have an income tax like Oregon?
Yes, Virginia levies a state income tax, so this is not a move from a taxed state to an untaxed one. The structural difference is that Oregon leans heavily on income tax precisely because it has no statewide sales tax, while Virginia collects through both income and sales tax. Virginia has no local income tax anywhere, so if you were paying regional transit or supportive-housing taxes in the Portland area, those layers disappear. Brackets and deductions change, so model your actual situation with a tax preparer or confirm current figures with the Virginia Department of Taxation.
What is Virginia’s personal property tax on vehicles?
It is an annual tax that each Virginia city and county levies on vehicles garaged within its boundaries, and it does not exist in Oregon, so it is a brand new bill for Portland transplants. Your locality assesses the value of every car, truck, motorcycle, boat or trailer each year, applies a locally set rate, and mails you a bill. Virginia has a statewide relief program that offsets part of the amount on qualifying vehicles, but how much reaches you varies by locality, so identical vehicles in Henrico and in the City of Richmond can produce different bills. Contact the commissioner of the revenue where you plan to live for the current rate and for how new residents are billed in their first partial year.
Are Richmond houses similar to Portland houses?
Strikingly so in the older neighborhoods, and this is one of the genuine comforts of the move. Richmond’s streetcar suburbs in Northside and Southside are full of craftsman bungalows and American Foursquares that look and behave much like Portland’s, with the same deep front porches, tapered columns, built-in cabinetry and modest footprints. Richmond then adds two things Portland essentially lacks, namely brick rowhouses in the Fan and Church Hill and a substantial Colonial Revival and mid-century brick ranch stock. The main differences are that brick is the regional default rather than wood siding, full basements are much less common because of the shallower frost line, and termite inspections replace seismic retrofit questions.
What Richmond neighborhood is like Alberta or Hawthorne?
Church Hill, the Fan and Scott’s Addition are the closest matches, each capturing a different part of what those Portland corridors offer. Church Hill is Richmond’s oldest residential district, sitting on a bluff with skyline and river views, cobblestone stretches and a mix of restored and in-progress houses, which gives it the same blend of grit and preservation as Alberta. The Fan is the grander version, with tree-lined avenues of rowhouses around Monument Avenue and a commercial strip along Main and Cary that reads much like Hawthorne. Scott’s Addition is the warehouse-conversion answer, packed with breweries, cideries, a distillery and lofts, and it is the easiest place in Richmond to meet people.
What Richmond neighborhood is like Laurelhurst or Eastmoreland?
The Museum District, Bellevue and Forest Hill are the closest analogues. All three share what defines those Portland neighborhoods: heavy mature tree canopy, good early-twentieth-century architecture, quiet residential streets and a settled unhurried feel. The Museum District, anchored by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, is the most urban of the three with a walkable commercial edge. Bellevue in Northside is the bungalow version with a small neighborhood main street on MacArthur Avenue, and Forest Hill on the Southside is the best fit for anyone who valued Eastmoreland’s park adjacency, because it sits directly against Forest Hill Park and the James River Park System trails.
Can you bike in Richmond VA like in Portland?
Not for daily commuting in the way Portland makes possible, though Richmond is better than its reputation for recreational riding. The city has built out bike lanes over the past decade and hosted a world cycling championship, and there is a real racing and recreational community here. The obstacles are genuine: Richmond is hilly at the fall line rather than flat, summer humidity makes bike commuting unpleasant for roughly three months, and drivers are less conditioned to expect cyclists. Where Richmond shines is trails, with miles of singletrack in the James River Park System and the paved Virginia Capital Trail running from downtown to Williamsburg.
Does Richmond have light rail like Portland’s MAX?
No. There is no rail transit anywhere in the Richmond metro, and this is one of the clearest downgrades in the move. What Richmond has is GRTC’s bus network plus the Pulse, a bus rapid transit line running along Broad Street through the center of the city with dedicated lanes and station platforms. The Pulse is genuinely useful if you live and work along that corridor and largely irrelevant if you do not. If you want to stay car-light, your realistic neighborhoods are the Fan, the Museum District, Church Hill, Jackson Ward, Carytown or Scott’s Addition, and you should say so to your agent immediately.
What are Richmond winters like compared to Portland?
Shorter, colder at the edges, and considerably brighter, which most Portland transplants count as a clear win. Richmond has a real winter with cold snaps rather than Portland’s long mild grey stretch, but it is compressed into a couple of months and there is far more sunshine. There is also a genuine spring and a genuine autumn with colour and crispness that the Willamette Valley does not deliver. The caveat is ice: a good share of Richmond’s winter precipitation falls as freezing rain, and with the region’s heavy tree canopy that brings down limbs and causes power outages, so keep a plan for that.
What outdoor recreation does Richmond have compared to Portland?
Richmond’s headline feature is the James River, which drops over the fall line in genuine whitewater rapids inside the city limits, with the James River Park System spanning both banks and miles of technical singletrack accessible from residential streets. Very few cities let you paddle real rapids and mountain bike and still be back at your desk in twenty minutes. Further out, the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah National Park are about two hours west and the Atlantic at Virginia Beach about two hours east. What you cannot replace is Mount Hood, the Columbia Gorge and the Pacific coast, so accept that the scale of terrain shrinks even as the in-city river access improves.
Is the cost of living lower in Richmond than Portland?
We do not publish cost-of-living comparisons, because the honest answer depends entirely on your household, your commute and the specific house you buy. What we can tell you are the factors that actually drive the difference: the age and type of house you choose, which locality you land in and its real estate tax rate, your vehicle count once Virginia’s personal property tax applies, the arrival of sales tax on your everyday spending, and whether you were paying Portland-area regional taxes. The useful exercise is to price two or three specific candidate houses in specific localities and model the full monthly cost including taxes and insurance. The Mission Realty Team will run that comparison with you on real properties rather than on published averages.
What should I do first when moving from Portland to Richmond?
Because this is a cross-country move, start eight to twelve weeks out by getting pre-approved with a lender licensed in Virginia, since Virginia closings use a settlement agent rather than Oregon’s escrow practice. Decide whether you are shopping in the City of Richmond or one of the surrounding counties, then contact each locality’s commissioner of the revenue for current real estate and personal property tax rates and the school division for attendance zones and specialty program deadlines. After you arrive, handle your Virginia license and vehicle titling at DMV, register those vehicles with the locality for personal property tax, register to vote and get an E-ZPass for the Powhite and Downtown Expressway tolls. If you can manage it, rent for six months, because one Richmond summer teaches you more about a neighborhood than any number of scouting trips.
Planning a Move From Portland to Richmond?
The Mission Realty Team works with relocating buyers every week across Richmond, Henrico, Chesterfield, Goochland, Hanover and Powhatan, and we will tell you honestly which neighborhoods fit your commute and your budget and which do not. Call us at (804) 601-4960 or stop by 3701 Cox Rd, Richmond VA 23233 for a current list of homes in any neighborhood on this page.
