I recently had a conversation with someone who said that after living in Irvine, CA for most of her life that there should be other great towns to enjoy living in. She said she started searching around and bumped into this spectacular place called Rocky Mount, VA. She fell in love with this small, beautiful town immediately. A small community of only 5,000 people with its irresistible charm, breathtaking scenery, perfectly developed infrastructure, banks, recreational areas and only 20 miles away from Roanoke and just 25 miles from Martinsville, she said it was exactly what she needed.

She was shocked when she started looking at homes in the area, and learned that you could buy a charming Georgian style four-bedroom and four-bathroom house of about 4,500 sq.ft on a 1,5 acre lot, buried in trees and having very tasteful landscape design, for just 425,000, saying that this kind of a house would be priced at 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 in Southern Orange County, CA. To finish our conversation, I had her check out the local taxes in Rocky Mount, just one example, property tax: only 0.12%; utility bracket is also one of the most cost effective in the country. She finished our conversation by saying that she was off to pack her bags.