
New York Is The Best State to Move to in U.S.
New York is considered the best state for a fresh, new start according to study.
Every year, there are people looking to start fresh, to set up life in a new place where they can start over and establish their lives. With the beginning of a New Year, it often represents a chance for people to do just that, as seen by Mansion Global, who have reported on a 32.4% increase in people moving to a new metro area in January 2022.
In a survey by This Old House, 82% of Americans are looking for a fresh start, with many of them considering moving as a result.
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While there are a host of different motivations that can cause someone to move, the team at View Homes gathered the 6 most important metrics to rank the top and bottom states to move to this year.
How The Best States Were Ranked
“We chose to look at a host of attributes to measure when determining the best places for a fresh start in the US,” says Liam Cope a real estate and relocation expert.
“For a lot of people, economic freedom is one of the primary motivators, so we looked at the cost of living, job opportunities, and economic data. Other factors like crime rates, quality of life, and social connectivity make a big difference when choosing where to move to, so we included those.”
Data Sources and Methodology:
- Cost of Living was sourced from the Cost of Living Index
- Job Opportunities was sourced from LinkedIn. Job listings were collected by filtering results for each state to determine the total number of opportunities.
- Crime Rates we sourced from FBI Crime Data. The dataset covers three crime categories (Crimes Against Society, Crimes Against Property and Crimes Against Persons). The total number of crimes across all categories was divided by each state’s population to calculate the crime rate as a percentage.
- Quality of Life was sourced from the Quality of Life by State index. To determine quality of life in each state, sources evaluated each state across 51 indicators, ranging from housing costs and income growth to the education rate and quality of hospitals. These are grouped into five major categories: affordability, economy, education and health, quality of life, and safety. Higher score means a better quality of life.
- For Economic Data we used the GDP by State (Gross Domestic Product by State and Personal Income by State, 2nd Quarter 2024)
- Social Connectivity / Loneliness we used the Map from Census Bureau showing the Percentage of Americans who feel lonely at least sometimes by state
New York Ranks Best
- New York is considered the best state for a new start across the board.
- New York ranks one of the highest for job opportunities, quality of life as well as really high economic value
- California and Texas rank 2nd and 3rd respectively
- States are recommended based on quality of life, crime rates, economic data, and social connectivity.

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The Best States for a Fresh Start
Top 10 States for A Fresh New Start in 2025:
1. New York
2. California
3. Texas
4. Florida
5. Tennessee
6. Illinois
7. Pennsylvania
8. Iowa
9. Colorado
10. Ohio
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