As the economy slowly but surely begins to bounce back in the US, many people have put their plans of moving to another state back on the table. You may be one of them.

Something which is of great value in planning for a move (or even thinking about it) is getting the answer to three questions:

1. What’s the average price of homes in X area?
2. How many people have moved to or from X area?
3. Can I get a job in X area?

These questions can be answered by Google easily – and you can get very specific with it.

Google Maps Real Estate

How to view real estate for anywhere on the map is to first load up a town or city, then click “More…” and check off the box for “Real Estate”, like this:

On the left sidebar is where you can fine tune what you’re looking for:

I really like the fact the ability to search foreclosed homes is there, because you can find some truly good property bargains that way.

Google Public Data Explorer – Population

You’ve found a city you’re thinking of moving to and have a very good idea of what the home prices are, but that’s not enough. Having some population statistics would be nice.

Using Google’s Public Data Explorer, this information is super-easy to get.

1. Go to the Datasets list, scroll down and click Population in the US.
2. On the next page, click Population.
3. On the next page, expand the state you’re thinking of moving to on the left.
4. After expanding, choose whether you want an overview of a “place” (i.e. a town) or a county.
5. Check off as many as you like to have them instantly show up on the chart to the right.

As an example, I chose Florida and all the counties in what’s known as the Central West region of the state. This was my result:

Hovering your mouse over any line will give you population statistics for that year:

You can also easily filter by age and/or gender:

For a different view on-map, click the globe icon at top left:

…and you’ll see something like this:

Bear in mind I’m using counties. You can use towns/cities, counties or even entire states.

Google Public Data Explorer – Unemployment

Okay, so you’ve picked out a spot and are satisfied with the real estate choice and population trends.

But can you find a job there?

One strong indicator if you will or not is by looking at the unemployment statistics.

1. Go to the Dataset directory.
2. Scroll down and click Unemployment in the U.S.
3. From there you have four choices (including Employment), but the more important choice is Unemployment, because it’s one thing for a place to have jobs but more important to know who’s keeping their jobs.

The unemployment charts work the same way at the population charts do. Pick a state and filter it down to county or town and go from there.

It’s very important to note the fact that these stats – and this is in very big letters on these web pages – are not seasonally adjusted. Obviously there will be parts of the year where employment is higher than others, such as the Christmas (or to be politically correct, “Holiday”) season where many take on temporary work during that time.

It’s also important to note the labor statistics do not state anything about job type. It does not discern between blue collar or white collar, how much people make or don’t make, and so on. All you’re looking at here are raw figures, which you can filter by location, age and/or gender, but that’s it.

All of this is valuable information, because states, counties and cities have drastically different unemployment rates. For example, one particular state overall may show it to be absolutely awful in the unemployment department, but then when you filter that down to county then to state, you’ll immediately see some areas are showing growth in employment.

This is the starting information you need if you intend to move

If you’re intending on moving, it will be worth your while to sit down and spend time getting the data you need using the above resources. Obviously this doesn’t cover everything like education, crime rates and so on (that data is publicly listed on state-run web sites), but it’s a darn good start.

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