I'll try to make this brief. Essentially, I'd love if someone with more experience could explain, simply, the best way to go about making a move for a career while being responsible with our money.
My husband and I became first time homeowners in the last 2 years, so we have not lived here long. It was a brand new build, but definitely more of a starter home for us. We are being offered a career change that would be almost 5x our current income, quite significant for us. This is a couple thousand miles away, and we have 2 small children.
The job is offering us 3k to move. Is it possible to negotiate more/home selling into this while being professional? How long is reasonable to ask for to get set up in this new location?
If we have a lot of time, is it better to rent and be put into a lease contract or try to start looking at home right away/find an agent? This seems like the biggest waste of money as homes in the area 4-5k monthly. Also, because our income will be significantly more we're hoping for a much larger home if that makes a difference. Finally, we will be flying out to visit as well at least once before this move.
Thank you in advance!
How do you sell your house and move across the country for a job?
byu/bubbl3gum inpersonalfinance
Posted by bubbl3gum
16 Comments
Absolutely rent first when you move to the new city. Less financial burden upfront and then you have time to get a feel for the city.
I can’t give much advice due to never having done any of this. But that relocation budget is incredibly low, especially for a job that supposedly compensates so well. To me it throws up red flags about the company. Are they stable? Legitimate? Will they be reasonable to work for? It would really give me pause about the offer itself.
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You either sell your house on contingency that you close on your new house or you sell your house and move and live in an apartment for x amount of time while you get settled and house hunt.
If you want to move house to house then one or both of you will have to fly out there and do intensive house hunting for a few days and pray you find something. Since you don’t know the area I wouldn’t be comfortable doing this I personally would want to get a solid feel for the town, neighborhood, schools, etc. if you don’t have room for all your stuff you put stuff in storage until you do. The $3k pays for your moving truck. You’ll also have to either drive your cars there, sell them and buy new, or have them shipped and then fly with a one way ticket to your new state.
My parents sold my house. We pared down on furniture and stuff and hired a guy to transport our 2 cars and movers to drive our stuff. We rented an apartment for 2 years and saved for a downpayment. Then we bought our house and bought more furniture and stuff we needed.
I wouldn’t put my house on the market until I had a signed offer letter. You’ll also need that letter for the real estate agent and mortgage broker.
We hired the movers and car shipper on upwork. They were the cheapest option I found. You can hire an actual moving company but that costs more than 2 guys in a big U-Haul. The movers did steal a box of Lenox Christmas decorations. We were so exhausted from the move that we didn’t even fight them on it when we notified a few weeks later. Put your expensive jewelry in your carry-on.
I’ve done this twice.
My advice is to find a month-to-month lease on an apartment in the new location and don’t rush finding a home. This will also allow you to check out different neighborhoods to see what works best for your family.
As for negotiating more for the move- I’d say if you’re 5x-ing household income, don’t sweat a little extra on the moving costs. Take the 3k and eat the rest.
Yes, it would be quite professional to negotiate *as long as you haven’t accepted* the job. Once the job is accepted, it would be poor taste to re-negotiate.
The $3k offer is called “anchoring” the negotiation. It keeps you from asking for $25k because you don’t want to blow them out of the water so you only ask for $10k and settle for $7k.
As to how to move…
You have to sell your house. Then buy a house. You likely want to rent in the new area first if you’re not familiar with the area.
If you’re going to go straight to buying, you can put offers on new houses that are contingent on your existing home selling.
Sellers may or may not accept your bid because they know getting someone to buy your house might be complicated.
A pair of real estate agents can help you with both sides of the process.
As far as moving. You either box your own stuff up and load it in a truck and drive it yourself – along with your car, kids, pets, etc.
Or you pay a company to do some or all of that.
Lot of options. But if you break down the tasks they’re not that hard to accomplish each task.
Just remember that people helping you costs money – sometimes a lot of money. This is where social network can also help out.. for the price of a bunch of beer and pizza, you can get all your friends to pitch in the labor for your move
What is your definition of brief? Because this wasn’t brief.
Sell house rent in new city.
Spend a year getting to know the area and the job.
The job might not be a good fit (for you or them) don’t get locked in.
First you sell your house.
Then you move across the country…
Done this before.
Rent to start. That way you have time to see where you want to live.
Sell the current home. Don’t try being a long distance landlord.
Take the 3k and make it work along with savings. Fill savings back up . Be ruthless with getting rid of stuff when you pack. You will still end up with a mystery box in the garage you won’t even open for a year.
This may sound kind of weird but the 3k doesn’t seem quite like a “relocation compensation” bonus. It sounds like your job doesn’t actually cover relocation. Typically covering relocation would be 10k+ or they just pay for the move entirely. So I would first make sure you understand exactly what this 3k is before you start negotiating.
Secondly, if you are moving somewhere very expensive (like the SF bay area) you may either not be able to afford a home or renting is actually a much better financial decision. Don’t automatically assume you must own a home here; renting full time is a very viable option. You are calling this a “waste of money” but I would do the comparison, home ownership wastes money on interest and repairs and property tax as well.
Did this 7 years ago. Do you both work? do you have a job already or will you need to find one?
In our case, I was able to transfer my job when I was ready and once my wife found a job the machinery went into place. She moved into temporary housing in the new city (aka her parents) but if this hadn’t been in their city she would have rented corp housing. The kids went with her because parents could help.
I stayed behind and sold the house. We packed up half the house into an ABF trailer and sent it on its way. Their storage is soooo much cheaper than a full service mover because they don’t charge you to unpack/repack it. The remaining stuff was used for staging the house for sale. Once the house was in escrow I packed up the rest of the house into a second ABF trailer and sent it on its way.
When they both got there we had them unloaded in sequential days using hired local labor. We bought a new house in our new city but only because we had a few months to shop. We would have stayed in a rental if we hadn’t found something. We also knew the city because we had lived there before.
This way of moving ended up being less than 1/2 of what a full service move would have cost us.
If you don’t have nice furniture yet, don’t take it. Take as little as possible and then get new/used furniture when you get there and have a place picked out. Moving and loading/unloading is expensive. Factor those costs into whether or not you should move it.
We had a job move us before. They offered a fully covered moving package. The movers packed the house, moved us 1300 miles. All paid by the company.
The house sold way faster than we planned and the company wanted us to stay for a few more more months.
They paid for a local move to an apartment, paid the rent till it was time to move to the new job site. they flew us out and we got a week paid to find a home.
Trust me finding a home in 1 week sucked. We toured over 60 homes in 4 days and spent 2 closing a deal.
I was offered a move for another job I took.
The offer was a full white glove move like that last one, they offered to cover all realtor fees, closing costs and 5k for incidentals. The offer was crazy but we chose to not take it.
I’ve moved states 3x now and every time I’ve done it I’ve rented in the new city for 4-6 months until I could figure out where I wanted to live/secure a place.
3k sounds low for a relocation package, but it could be that they have local prospects so they don’t feel like they need to give you a bigger relocation package to take the job. That was how one of my moves was (the other candidate was local so they would only give me 5k as a signing bonus to move). I’m glad I took that job though, really launched my career into what it is today.
Two of the move I ended up selling all of my stuff, loading up my SUV with personal items and driving myself to the new city. I was single though so much easier than a family of 4. This last move I did actually put my stuff into a moving van and move it because I had finally bought “adult” furniture that I really loved.
Good luck!
I would definitely rent in the new city for up to a year before buying. That way you’ll have time to explore, find the areas that you like and fit your lifestyle, and then look for houses in those areas. As an example, I live in LA and areas that are only miles apart vary significantly, so learning you want to live in a certain area but not past this block could save a mistake. With respect to selling, a good realtor will cost more but they can also do things like professional photography and staging which should earn you more than their cut in price increases (not guaranteed of course).
I paid a bit over $3K to move the contents of a 4 bedroom house with a garage locally in the Midwest 7 years ago (labor + moving truck). I packed everything myself, but have a LOT of stuff so there was extra labor.
I’ve also moved internationally & through multiple states.
Unless you have a very minimal amount of stuff & it will all fit into 1 U-Haul (& you can tow a car on a car trailer), then I don’t recommend doing a DIY move.
If you’re moving thousands of miles?
Ideally you have movers that pack everything, load it into crates, & deliver it to your location with optional unpacking. But this is really expensive & not worth blowing your budget on.
The best way to save yourself time & money is to do a partial DIY move, but use a transport company.
First, before you pack anything go through your entire house & get rid of everything you no longer want, need, &/or would be cheaper to replace at the new location.
Pack the contents of your house in boxes/bubble wrap by yourself/with friends, creating an inventory with photos as you go, & load it all into crates/storage cubes.
You need to pack the crate/cube from top to bottom, so nothing will shift. Make sure you seal/shut/lock the crates/cubes yourself.
The moving company will pick the crates/cubes up, transport to your new location, & store locally until delivery.
You might want to hire some local labor for a few hours to help unload the quickest way.
Look online for to get estimates/quotes for the crate/cube rentals, transportation to new location, insurance + storage (monthly), & local labor (2-4 people for 3-4 hours x1 or x2).
I’m guessing at least $5K-$10K just to move your stuff. I would try to get the company to cover this cost 100%.
If the company is supposed to cover relocation, there’s additional expenses that also need to be included (beyond your stuff). Is there an expectation that they will help with other aspects?
Moving your cars (drive vs truck transport), hotels, gas, insurance, rental fees (application fees, security deposit, pet fees, etc.), & eating out in transit/in hotel. There’s always incidentals & circumstantial expenses that I didn’t mention.