Relocation 101: A Family Guide

Relocation can be an exciting time for the whole family, or it can be a nightmare, depending on your point of view. Knowing how to deal with relocation for a work opportunity will help you get the best out of the deal.

Relocation happens for many reasons, but they all concern getting a new job or promotion in a town some distance from where you are now. This could be across the state, or across the ocean, but wherever it is, it is important that you look on it as an opportunity.

The first step to relocation is establishing exactly what is being offered. The job is only part of the deal. What help are they offering you to make the move smooth? Unfortunately this may not be all that you need to make the move worthwhile. The biggest hassle for relocation, financially, is the home. Cost of living in one are versus the next, and the shear cost of selling and buying houses can erode the equity that you have gained. In the glorious eighties major companies relocated families like they were pieces on a chess board and accepted the total cost of the move. Today that may not be so. This is a major factor for many families but in many cases, the offer of the job makes it necessary to sometimes take a temporary loss in equity.

If you ascertain that you can afford the move, you will need to start looking for a new home and schools for your children. Each of these is a major hurdle to address. First establish where the place of employment is. From this you will be able to draw a line that guides you to where it is feasible to look for houses. The line should not be based purely on geographic distance but roads and rush hour traffic should also be taken into account. So should the school district. Whether you have children in a school system or not you will want to target areas with good schools. From a resale point of view this makes sense too, as these areas hold their value well, and are popular with families that have children.

To find these areas you will need to rely on your realtor, but you can also use the internet. Most school systems have their test data online, but some care should be taken with the interpretation. A high school might profess to have average SAT scores that are close to 600 in all areas, but if you look at the percentage of children that take SATs, it is down to 50% of children. This is not good. Most children in this school district are below a standard where it is deemed reasonable to gain a decent grade. Another factor that can shift the average is the number of children in public versus private schools that take the test. These may all be lumped into one average, but in general, the children in preparatory schools will bias the curve.

With care though, if you have established an area that you would like to look at, use your realtor to fine tune the neighborhood. Between a helpful and knowledgeable realtor and the internet, you should be able find a new home to settle into, with the knowledge that the schools are what you expect them to be. Ultimately these two major factors will allow the move to progress at a decent and comfortable rate.

Kate Copsey is a Corporate Gypsy who has relocated with children many times over the past 20 years. Please visit http://www.katecopsey.com to read more about how to settle in a new area.

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