Making a 'big' move.

In My Humble Opinion
1

My wife and I are contemplating a move out of state, or at least different part of California (it’s big y’know). I moved here from Oregon, but I was in high school at the time and didn’t have to plan anything myself. She’s been in Silicon Valley her whole life.
Some single-day U-Haul level moving, but still the same general area.

I know lots of people move all over. How does that go down? Find a job first? Find housing first? How much savings should we have? When do you know it was a mistake or not? What questions do we not even know have to be asked?

There’s also the personal economics. We live in about the most expensive place there is, so the home prices and rental rates look comically low, but so do wages. How do we calculate what we need to bring in?

2

Don’t forget to ask about the cost of property taxes, hoa fees, utilities, property insurance, pet deposits if it applies, and if you have to pay deposits to utility companies and 1st and last months rent if renting.

Have a garage sale, donate, purge before packing. Don’t pay to move junk from one place to another. And it’s literally thousands cheaper if you pack yourself. There are calculators online to help estimate how big a truck you’ll need. And lots of sites with moving checklists.

I advise renting small first so you can learn what are good/bad areas of town. Then buy.

The rest depends on your field of work and if you have property you’ll be selling. The hardest part for me has always been do we buy first, and risk 2 simultaneous mortgage payments, or sell first and risk being homeless for a short bit? There’s no easy answer for that dilemma.

Good luck!

3

I’ve moved a few times long-distance because of educational and employment opportunities. Each time I had the opportunity lined up beforehand. I’m not adventurous enough to do otherwise.

One thing I would do, if you can spare the time and money, is to go on a reconnaissance mission once you have a city picked out. I didn’t do this when I moved from Florida to Virginia, and I wish I had. I found an apartment on Craigslist and made arrangements with the landlord by phone, sight unseen. It worked out (it helps that I’m not too picky). But it could have easily turned out to be a horrible decision.

Also, don’t let people scare you off of moving to a place if they have never lived there before. It’s funny how folks think they know everything about a place just because they’ve driving past it on the expressway. Not every “bad neighborhood” is really bad. And not all reputations are fairly earned.

4

The first question you ought to answer is: “Why are you contemplating a move?”. A lot of advice will depend on that.

However:

Find jobs first, then move. You could live on your savings until you find employment, but why would you? It sounds like your current job/living situations are tolerable, so better to stay where you are for a few extra months and step right into a paycheck. Unless you are some kind of trust fund people and don’t have to worry about mundane concerns like paying bills.

Rent for a year. You are more likely to find the house you want in the neighborhood you want if you aren’t under pressure to find a place to live in a week. This also gives you the flexibility to fix up or renovate a house before you move in. Plus, it takes while to learn a new city’s traffic, neighborhoods, etc.; there’s no reason to tie yourself to a specific neighborhood as soon as you move to town.

Disclaimer: I’ve only ever moved for work and college, so while I’ve lived in a lot of places, none of them are places I’d choose to live if I didn’t need to be near work.

5

Have the woman revert to childhood and be in his class at the end.

Oops, sorry. Read the title as Making a ‘Big’ movie.:smiley:

6

I second this. More info needed, otherwise, we’re all blowin’ smoke.

7

Good call. I figure we’ll do at least one trip first. About eight years ago my wife went alone to Portland when we got close to moving there (we didn’t). That was good for her to get a lay of the land.

One thing we’re undecided on it how suburban or rural we want. That affects recon trips.

8

You did not answer the question. In addition to your motives, I also would like to know how “adventurous” you and your wife are.

I am very laid back. I also do not need much. My wife, however, likes to know where she will lay her head next week. She is not a big fan on uncertainty.

Both of us have skills that are universally in demand. For us having a job lined up is not very important. We can always find jobs. We can, and have, lived in “bad” neighborhoods. I have been “urban camping”. She could do it, but Why? Rentals are usually available.

The advice to have a yard sale and “thin down” your possessions is excellent! Also just before you move, sell the appliances. They are big and awkward. Do not deal with that. Unless the furniture has some sentimental value, sell it as well. Great grandma’s rocker from her grandma built in the “Old Country” by Great great great grand uncle Sean, should be kept or given to your sensitive sister. Do not expect it back.

Only keep the minimum of clothes and paperwork. You do not need the rent receipts from 12 years ago. Nor do you need that jacket that you never wear that Aunt May bought for you 11 years ago at goodwill. Dump it! Pictures, keep if possible. Trust me on this one! In short, purge the household.

Autos can be purged as well. Be careful with this though. Your rig maybe worth much more in one location as opposed to another. For instance in Portland Oregon 4X4 trucks are not popular and are cheap. In western Colorado, they are expensive and desirable. Thus, they are much more costly to obtain.

IHTH, 48.

9

Not in My World! :smiley: You should see my place!

10

For this you need to take an honest hard look at your habits and interests. It’s very easy for most of us to get sucked in when we visit a rural place on vacation, and dream of raising our own chickens in acres of land, but then I remind myself that I like to dine out a lot, and be able to walk to the shops and go to art galleries, so city life is where I am.

I agree with Furious_Marmot. I made a big move nine months ago, and it’s been a great success, but mainly because:

  1. we identified a city we really liked first, and checked it suited both our lifestyles and career paths in terms of opportunities for both of us. Plenty of reccies.

  2. My partner then job hunted in earnest. I was self-employed, so more portable.

  3. The company she found a job with then offered to pay our moving expenses, our first three months rent and gave us the services of a relocation agent to help us find a home. All that would have cost us 1000s.

  4. We have rented for a year, because how would we know where we’d like to live? Also, because moving cities if stressful enough without combining that with a house purchase. This has worked out perfectly, and have just made an offer on a house in an area we have come to love (not the same area we are currently renting). We wouldn’t have known about it without living here.

11

Awww, I have to giggle at a move between (or even within) a state being considered a ‘big’ move. We moved from New Zealand to England. :wink:

We had:

  • a guaranteed job for my husband which started about a week after the move
  • a self-catering cottage for four weeks to give us time to find a rental
  • a rental car for four weeks
  • four months worth of cash

We would not have moved without the guaranteed job, or we would have saved up a lot more money first.

How do you know when it was a mistake or not? That’s a tough one and I suspect it’s different for everyone. You do have to give yourself plenty of time to adjust to a new place and new life.

12

Given that I don’t know your full situation, rather than giving advice, I think the best I can do is recount two of my big moves.

  1. After college, I moved from Santa Cruz to Oakland in search of more job opportunities. I arranged to sublet an apartment via Craig’s List beforehand, and did one trip up to view it and sign the paperwork. Being post-college, I didn’t have a ton of stuff. I didn’t have a job there, but I did have enough to live on for a month or so. I quickly found a temp job, and eventually a full time job.

  2. I’ve moved back to DC after living overseas twice. Both times, I spent my first week on a friend’s couch while I kept my finger tightly on the pulse of Craig’s List to find a place to rent- and in both cases I found a place within a week. Having lived overseas, I had little more than I could fit into a suitcase, plus a few boxes of stuff sent via USPS from my old place in CA. I was a student for these moves, so my financial aid helped smooth the initial transitions until I found a job.

I agree it’s a good idea to rent for a year until you really understand the nuance of the different neighborhoods. While having a job beforehand is always the best practice, in some cases (like if you are looking for entry level positions) that may not be possible. What you do with that just depends on how risk adverse you are. I know a lot of people who have moved places and waited tables until they found a real job, but that’s a big risk.

How happy you are is partially going to depend on how well you can find a community. If you are able to take advantage of MeetUp groups, take classes, or otherwise find a way to meet people with similar interests, that will go a long way towards making it feel worth it.

13

Job(s) first! Job(s) first! Job(s) first!

Clear enough? Imagine if you were moving from out of state to wherever you are now. Let’s assume you’ve moved to Cupertino. Now you find a great job, but guess what - it’s in Vallejo. :eek:

We moved from CA to NC five years ago as the job situation in CA was disastrous, and there was promise of a good job for my husband at a medical facility that was being built in NC. Turns out, the job was vaporware. The hospital had not been built, and and never will be. My job was portable (the joys of being with an international enterprise) and we lived on that primarily while he had a variety of temporary or dreadful jobs that didn’t last long.

So yes, the move was a mistake. We’re moving back to CA in a couple of weeks.

Moving advice I can give? The first is put your home on a diet. Get rid of clothes that don’t fit or that you don’t wear any more. Dump that old chair in the den that noody ever sits on. Consider getting rid of Ikea or other particle board furniture. That stuff is heavy and really fragile. The chances that you’ll be able to move a particle board cabinet and not have it crumble and chip are really low. If appliances are more than a few years old, think about selling them.

Consider multiple moving options. A U-Haul truck is probably the cheapest looking option, but those things suck gas like crazy. Real-world fuel economy for them is 5-7 MPG. Ryder/Penske trucks are diesel, so they’re a bit more economical, but not by a huge amount. If you’re driving your stuff, consider how many people you’ll have that can trade off on driving, as well as if you’re bringing vehicles. If your stuff will fit into one truck and you have one car, you can put the car on a dolly or trailer behind the truck. Just be sure to remember it’s there - the back end of the car may be nearly invisible from the truck’s cab, which will make lane changes extra exciting.

PODS or U-Haul’s U-Boxes are an option. Both are very easy to load, but the tradeoff is the cost of PODS vs the small size of U-Boxes. Our move would have needed something like ten of the little boxes or three PODS.

ABF U-Pack is very similar to PODS - you load, they drive. The inconvenience is having to get your stuff onto a standard height truck. PODS and U-Boxes are walk-on things with floors about one inch over ground height. The loading height of an ABF trailer or Penske truck is close to four feet. U-Haul trucks are about a foot lower, but your legs will still be cranky at the end of the day after a hundred trips up and down the ramp.

With rental trucks and ABF trailers, you will have a fairly tight time window for loading and unloading, and some stiff penalties for going overtime. With PODS, you have more time - IIRC, the charges include one month’s use of the container, which includes loading, their drive time and unloading.

Get a couple of bids from moving companies. If you pack your stuff, that saves a lot of money - might as well since you have to do your own packing with U-Haul or PODS.

For our move, the price spectrum was something like $6500 for two U-Haul trucks to $11,500 for three PODS. Professional movers came in at $8200, so we went that route. We’ve spent about $550 for boxes and bubble wrap.