Go West, East, South or North young woman, young man…
Last August, Angela Coletti left economically depressed Detroit for a job in Los Angeles as a field marketing manager for an automotive company.
“I love the sunny weather in Southern California, but miss the warm friendliness and reasonable cost of living of the Mid-West,” she laments.
Coletti is one of many workers out there who found they had to look for greener pastures if they wanted their careers and lives to flourish. But she faces a problem many employees today face — she still can’t sell her home.
“Regrettably, I am renting now in Santa Monica, CA. I have a condo in suburban Detroit that has been on the market for the last eight months. Approximately 95% of my current income goes towards my Detroit mortgage and LA rent. There is very little disposable income at this time. Renting in LA is not a choice, but rather a necessity. I would prefer to buy and enjoy the benefits of home ownership in LA, but the market is simply too inflated and beyond my reach as a single member household.”
Unfortunately, Coletti isn’t alone. I address the issue of relocating in today’s job and housing market in my MSNBC.com column today.
So how do you know if you should start packing your bags?
Roberta Chinsky Matuson of Human Resource Solutions offers these questions to ask yourself:
1. Do I have enough money in the bank to support myself in case my search
takes longer than expected? If not, what is my plan to earn money while
looking for work?
2. Do I really want to live in this part of the country? It is important
to think about how well you will fit into your new environment. I know many
southerners who flew back home after one winter in the northeast.
3. Is this a move my family is willing to make? It is one thing to pick up
and move when you are single. It gets a lot more complicated when other
family members are involved.
One of the hardest things you’ll ever do in your life is move. Trust me. I have moved many times when I was single and then many times after getting married, and then having kids. IT WAS HELL!
I don’t regret any of those moves, even though they were so difficult. Sometimes you have to get up and go, for work, for family, for a better life.
Believe it or not, my husband and I are contemplating yet another move next year.
I’m not tied to any one location. That may be the way my parents brought us up. My mother and father both were forced to leave their homeland of Istanbul, Turkey, and come to a totally unknown place, for them, the United States.
My father always said it was the best decision he ever made even though it was probably his toughest decision.
The main thing is to make the move with intelligence. Do your homework. Make sure the town is right for you. Find a job you’ll love, or at least sort of enjoy.
And think about the economics of moving before you rent the U-haul.
Coletti is happy she made the move but she would have done some things differently:
“Although I did receive a modest relocation allowance, I wish I would have pressed the issue of my home in Detroit. My company has a policy of providing limited relocation assistance to new hires, but if I had to do it again, I would have asked for a conditional arrangement. Perhaps to revisit a home repurchase option after 6-8 months of employment, contingent on my performance reviews, which fortunately, have been very favorable.”
So don’t rush to split your town. Use the Internet for all its worth..research, network, compare towns, etc.
And don’t be afraid to move on, even though, as Coletti points out you’ll endure some pain:
“Like my European ancestors in the 1920s, I feel like moving for the sake of opportunity requires a personal sacrifice of leaving behind family and friends.”
April 28th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Moving once children are on the scene is very hard, and it’s not simply that the kids will miss their friends. When you move, unless you are moving to an area where you already have family or friends, you are losing your support system. My wife and I moved to Minnesota 12 years ago when we had three pre-school children. Our move was relatively short–four to five hours from family on each side (hers and mine)–but it was far enough that we would only see them on some holidays and special occasions thereafter.
All of our previous moves had been local–either in the same town or within an hour of our previous location. We always had friends willing to help us with the move. That was one big difference when moving away from friends and family that hit us when we finally pulled in with our final load–there was no big group of friends to help us unload.
We lost access to trusted babysitters, knowledge of local libraries and other community activities, and the ability to get help from our parents (e.g., babysitting, discuss issues over coffee). We had to find a trusted mechanic, plan long trips to visit family, and find new affinity groups. My wife, who stayed with our kids full-time, probably had it hardest of us all. She no longer had a network of friends and other moms who would drop by or help out from time to time. She had to go it alone, other than some long distance calls (that we desperately tried to limit due to the expense). It was a very lonely time for her.
We moved again almost two years ago, and this time we did things differently. We still are distant from family (more distant than before, in fact), but we did get a better sense of the community before we made the move–mostly because the new location was only a couple of hours from our then current home. Our faith is central to our lives, so we wanted to make sure we found a community with a vibrant church community with which we could connect. We found one that looked interesting and visited the church before we settled on the destination of our move (we knew the general region, but not which town/city). The people there made us feel immediately at home. That week, we looked at some houses, and put in an offer on one that would meet our needs. While waiting for our house to sell, we started attending that church every other week. Four month later, when both sales finally closed, we had a crowd waiting for us, to help us unload. It was actually our first move, ever, where I was able to walk into our bedroom at the end of our first day and simply climb into bed–they had it set up before I even got into that part of the house! Had it not been for the support system they provided during our first year, I don’t know that we would have survived with our sanity intact.
Sure, online research is great, but if you are going to move, seek to make as many human connections as possible in your target destination before you load the truck. You’ll be glad you did.