WWYD re: visiting location of new job in advance

[youngspiritmom]

DH got offered a new job in another state. It is in the state where he grew up and 30 mins from where his family lives. We've visited his family several times but we are planning to live in a city 30 mins from them where I have never been. We are 99% sure we are going to take this job and move there. It starts Aug 1 so we would move in midJuly.

I am not from this area and would like to go during the first weekend in June to visit. I imagine scoping out housing, driving around, checking out his new work place, and just getting a feel for the different neighborhoods and people. I want to do this to ease my own fears about moving, and make an educated decision about what area I would be happiest living in. I think if I could color in more details about the area, I could be more on board about the move.

DH says he understands where I'm coming from but that it will cost $700 to go for the weekend. He says we could just save the $700 and go in July with everything and stay with his MIL while looking for a place. He says we could just do all the scoping out etc. when we move there, instead of spending the $700 to go for a weekend in June.

What do you think? What would you do?

[laohaire]

Just from a financial/logical standpoint, I'd go with your DH's plan. For us, $700 would be a lot of money, so it would be money well saved. If you had a base place (MIL's house) to work from, and it's only 30 minutes from the job location, I think you would have a very safe situation to scope things out and not make any hasty decisions. Assuming MIL is ok hosting you for a couple months (hopefully less than a month, but just saying a couple in case things don't all gel at once).

But, I think your anxiety is worth adjusting the plan for. If you're very anxious about it, then $700 could be well worth your peace of mind.

I take it you'd rather have the peace of mind than the $700.

And your husband has his peace already so he'd rather have the $700.

If you are really that anxious about it, then I'd ask him to do this for you, his wife.

If you think you'll live, but are just a little worried and trying to think it through, I think you'll be safe from making hasty decisions since you have MIL to stay with for a while.

[Mosaic]

Honestly, I don't think a weekend is enough time to give you the peace of mind you seek. I wouldn't want to get to know the place while crashing with my MIL, either. I'd recommend getting an apartment with a 6-month lease or so, to give yourself time to get to know the place without a ton of artificial time pressure.

[newbymom05]

I was in almost the exact situation, except it's my SIL who's 30 min away. He had to move for work so it was pretty much a done deal but it's turned out to be the best thing financially. If you can swing the finances for you to go out, I would definitely do it to the point I'd insist on it. DH got transferred to where we are now and all I got was a weekend before we moved, and like I said, it was pretty much a done deal, but I absolutely needed it to do just what you posted--drive around, check things out, basically just to be able to picture myself living there/here.

I also agree w/ the rental suggestion. We rented for a year and then moved to our current house. Even after looking for a year we were still not all that familiar with the area we chose. It's worked out, but I often think we just got lucky--moving to a new area is tough. Going for a family visit isn't the same IMO. You don''t visit thinking about grocery stores, libraries, schools, year-round weather, neighbors/neighborhoods, etc etc etc.

Good luck!

[philomom]

I'd go and try to rent a car and stay with his family. There are things you need to know about neighborhoods and schools you are considering. A single weekend won't cut it.

[chel]

I've done lots of job transfers moves.

If you think you could handle the inlaws I would skip the weekend trip. Unless you are going out with an agent, you won't really get a feel of the area, and even with an agent there is only so much they can/will say about the area.

I would suggest reading the local paper, online is easiest, to get a feel of the crime. Also try the tribal area on mdc for the opinion of local parents.

It looks like your child is very young. There is a huge push to sell a house in the summer as many families want to move before school start. I looked at my current home in July for our weekend trip ( paid by company). We didn't buy till nov and the house went down by almost $100,000. There is a huge drop after oct.

For us renting was very $. I would have loved to be able to live with family if any were near by, we had less than a month to move, so buying ahead of time wasn't possible.

[KatWrangler]

I am confused, what are you going to do with all your stuff if you just move in mid July and stay with your ILs? You leaving it in a truck in the driveway? Or are you unloading and then having to reload when you actually find a place? I want my ducks in a row before I go. BTDT numerous times cross country with and without kids. Normally you can't just sign and move in on a lease either. They will run credit and background checks. Which may take a couple of days. Have you posted the area in Finding your tribe? Talk with other Mama's about the possible area.

[KatWrangler]

If this is a college area, then rentals are scarce mid to late summer.

[cristina47454]

So you've already picked the town. That helps.  But I'm sure you still need to figure out neighborhoods, etc. Are you planning on buying immediately? We've done a couple of moves in t he last couple of years...I very reluctant to rent.  I really wanted to be a homeowner again.  But I have to say, thank GOD we are renting. For one thing, we need to move again and we can just pick up and go without worrying about selling. And also, when we moved here, it was peak market and I'm sure we'd be underwater right now! I'll tell you that we were in driving distance of our "new" location (1.5 hrs) and I did come up SEVERAL times.  Drove around with different real estate agents and the whole bit and it did NOTHING for me in terms of figuring out the lay of the land. I had to actually live here to do that. I have two different friends that moved out of state, bought a house, and within a year were so miserable that they moved again. They both lamented that they wish they had rented first.

OK, back on topic. I think it really depends on your financial situation. And I agree with the pp who stated that $700 is worth the peace of mind and that your dh already has his peace of mind, etc etc. However, realize, like another poster said, that a weekend isn't really a long enough period to learn much about an area. Are you hoping to find a place to live in that weekend? Man, talk about pressure. Especially since the inventory is likely to change over the course of the summer into the fall.  If you can stand it, it might be worth living with your inlaws so you can make a decision without jumping the gun. 

[chel]

You could rent a pod for storage. My relo plan included storage fees for 3 months.
We stored almost all of our stuff, moved with what we could fit in 2 cars

[heatherdeg]

Originally Posted by chel 

I've done lots of job transfers moves.

If you think you could handle the inlaws I would skip the weekend trip. Unless you are going out with an agent, you won't really get a feel of the area, and even with an agent there is only so much they can/will say about the area.

I would suggest reading the local paper, online is easiest, to get a feel of the crime. Also try the tribal area on mdc for the opinion of local parents.

It looks like your child is very young. There is a huge push to sell a house in the summer as many families want to move before school start. I looked at my current home in July for our weekend trip ( paid by company). We didn't buy till nov and the house went down by almost $100,000. There is a huge drop after oct.

For us renting was very $. I would have loved to be able to live with family if any were near by, we had less than a month to move, so buying ahead of time wasn't possible.

I want to ditto a lot of this (the bolded stuff).  We had to move halfway across the country and made multiple pre-move trips to disqualify different areas.  We had a broad range of places to live (too broad, actually) so we spent probably 3-ish days in each area.  I did a lot of pre-trip research on what was available that was important to us: organic foods, homeschooling resources (library, groups, etc.), HMN chapter, and enrichment activities for the kids.  We had two house purchases fall through and landed in a rental.  That was last July.  We are now moving into a purchased home, but I'm not really thrilled with it (we actually bought it to be a rental, but are moving into it for lack of a better purchase option because we can't stay in the rental).  Even after being her for nearly a year, I don't feel completely comfortable about where I WANT to be around here.  I mean, I know I want to be close to my son's homeschool coop because I really do love it, but that could land us in 3-4 different areas spread across 3 towns.

And it's true that prices drop after Oct. 1st, but so does availability.  Also, we haven't seen traditional markets for the last two years.  Prices haven't plummeted in the fall like they used to.  Also, when I was an agent, you'd find that some of the highest selling prices of the year would be in Oct/early Nov. from buyers who spent the entire spring/summer shopping, finding nothing, and desperate to be into a home before the holidays.  But that doesn't really seem to be happening much anymore, either.  The market is just not following traditional ups and downs.  People are not dropping prices when they would've.  Most simply can't (and thus, the houses just sit).  Add to it that there is a backlog of foreclosures due to hit the market over the next year that is really concerning.  You'll be well in a position to buy for quite a while--time of year notwithstanding.  There is simply more inventory available during April through October to choose from and the availability is generally following the trend of "move while kids are out of school" but the prices don't seem to be following that same supply/demand scenario.  In fact, people that have pulled homes off the market in January and relisting them now are relisting at LOWER prices where traditionally, they'd have left them at the same price or gone higher to account for the shift in demand for the season.

Find out what your relocation benefits are, if any.  If you were offered a job, but moving is on your dime--I would likely move in July and rent a place until I got a feel for the area.  And I'm not sure a single year would do it, either.  Relocating has been an extremely frustrating process for us for exactly that reason: we're anxious to settle down already!

[youngspiritmom]

Thank you all for your amazing suggestions and advice. We are actually looking to rent an apartment, not to buy, although we are planning to buy in 3-4 years. I am thinking that maybe just I will go out for a weekend visit for my peace of mind, and then we will stay with MIL for a month or so while we scope everything out. I love the idea about reading the paper online. I am starting to do that. Any other great ways to get to know a community that you suggest?

[chel]

In past moves, I just looked for a good school district. Even if you homeschool, a good district is often in your best interest to make for an easier sell in the future.

One move I could only find one apartment complex online in the area that I wanted. I skipped the weekend search and just went for it. It worked out great. Once I moved I found out there were other apartments, much smaller and not as nice, they just didn't list online. I ended up rented for years until I found a home less than a mile away

[philomom]

Originally Posted by chel 

In past moves, I just looked for a good school district. Even if you homeschool, a good district is often in your best interest to make for an easier sell in the future.

This is "the word" in home buying. Always, always buy into the best school district you can afford.. even if you don't use it.. these homes will have a higher re-sale value. Also, don't buy on a double yellow stripe road or a busy road.

[Drummer's Wife]

Check out the forums at city-data.com. Lots of good info regarding neighborhoods/schools and such, depending on how active the board is for your future city.

I think visiting for a few days is ideal, and it is what we did before we moved out of state.  It helped us figure out which of two cities we wanted to live in, and it made it more real for us and the kids to see where we were moving (after living in the same area for our whole lives).  But, I can see how it might not make sense financially; we were lucky in that DH's work sent us out here - they were the reason we moved - so they paid for gas, hotel, and other expenses for traveling.  DH took a tour of his new work place while we were here, so I'm sure that helped them be able to justify it as a business expense.

Good luck figuring it all out!

[cristina47454]

I second city-data forums!!