MOSES LAKE — Grant County is a great place to live and raise a family. It’s also rapidly becoming one of the top places in the state of Washington to invest, according to a study produced by a financial technology company SmartAsset.

(https://smartasset.com/investing/investment-calculator#washington)

The second annual SmartAsset study indicates Grant County ranks fourth among counties receiving the greatest amount of investment in their local communities. The ranking is based on performance across four categories: business establishment growth, Gross Domestic Product growth, new building permits, and municipal bond investment.

Grant County is ranked just behind King County, which was third. Thurston County drew the top ranking, followed by Benton, King and Grant counties were third and fourth, respectively.

“What I thought was significant is that (Grant County) is immediately after King County with all its millions of dollars. I thought, wow, that’s really good for a smaller county like our,” said Linda Martin, Grant County Economic Development Council executive director. “The perception is that King County should be first in all things, but what is great about this is that it shows we have the capability to service and help complement multi-million dollar investments.”

Local investment and economic expansion are positive signs for communities because of the inherent quality of life improvements they represent. According to the study, Grant County ranked fourth in Washington and carried a national ranking of 111.

There are several ways individuals, governments and businesses can invest money in a county or region. The purpose of the study is to capture the places across the nation that are receiving the most incoming investments in business, real estate, government and the local economy as a whole.

According to SmartAsset, it incorporated in the number of businesses established in each location over a three-year period to show whether or not people are starting new business ventures in the county.

Secondly, it took a look at the GDP growth, using real growth (inflation adjusted) in the local economy. It also factored investment and development in the local residential real estate market to measure this real estate growth, calculating the number of new building permits per 1,000 homes.

The final factor was investment in municipal bonds. The study found total municipal bond debt raised by a county over the last five years, divided by the population to determine a per capita look at investment in local government.

“We scored every county in our study on these four factors, weighting each factor equally. We then combined those scores to create a final ranking of cities,” Steve Sabato with SmartAsset said. “With that ranking, we created an index where the county with the most incoming investments was assigned a value of 100 and the county with the least investment activity received a zero.”

Economic growth and a quality of life is an ideal setting for the future in central Washington.

“To summarize, the No. 1 thing is that being that high in the rankings indicates we have the capability to accommodate multi-million dollar investment,” Martin said. “No. 2, being that close to King County is remarkable. Here, you don’t have the other issues of an urban environment. We have a better quality of life, which is desirable too.”