Falls Church Ranked As Wealthiest In Virginia Based On 3 Factors

FALLS CHURCH, VA — Falls Church residents overall can be considered the wealthiest among Virginia's localities, according to a new study from SmartAsset.

SmartAsset, a financial advice resource, based its ranking of residents' wealth by locality on three factors: investment income per capita, median home value and per capita income. For the investment income factor, the study evenly weighed ordinary dividends, qualified dividends and net capital gains in the score. Data comes from the IRS, National Association of Realtors, and Bureau of Economic Analysis.

"We calculated a Wealth Index for all U.S. counties based on a combination of these three metrics and ranked them accordingly to provide a holistic view of what areas of the U.S. are accumulating the most wealth," SmartAsset's study page states.

Falls Church came in first in Virginia with a wealth index of 49.25 based on the three factors. The city's investment income per capita ($23,899) was lower than two others in the top 10 — Goochland County with $42,392 and Albemarle County with $30,055. However, its median home value of $935,913 and per capita income of $127,610 were higher than others in the top 10.

The top 10 wealthiest localities as ranked by SmartAsset are:

1. Falls Church City
2. Arlington County
3. Fairfax County
4. Fairfax City
5. Goochland County
6. Alexandria City
7. Loudoun County
8. Prince William County
9. Albemarle County
10. Fauquier County

See how Virginia localities rank on wealth here.