Long distance house move...logistics?

bylromarha

How do you co-ordinate a house move of 200+miles?

Am feeling a little daunted by the thought of choosing primary schools for the kids to go to, but also living near a good secondary school, finding a house, finding a job...in teaching you rarely get an interview unless you visit the school pre-application. And as a teacher, I can't take a day off to visit schools to see them for either my job applications or for my kids to attend!

The 6 hour round trip is just making things feel impossible at the moment.

Resigned myself to renting for the first few months, but how do you do long distance moves?!

balletshoes

bylromarha wrote: »

How do you co-ordinate a house move of 200+miles?

Am feeling a little daunted by the thought of choosing primary schools for the kids to go to, but also living near a good secondary school, finding a house, finding a job...in teaching you rarely get an interview unless you visit the school pre-application. And as a teacher, I can't take a day off to visit schools to see them for either my job applications or for my kids to attend!

The 6 hour round trip is just making things feel impossible at the moment.

Resigned myself to renting for the first few months, but how do you do long distance moves?!

we did a 400 mile house move, and thats what we did too - first of all I contacted the local newspaper for the area, asked them which days of the week they had their rental properties featured, and got them sent to me for I think one month. I'm a civil servant, so I also phoned one of the new area offices, and spoke to a couple of colleagues who were local to that area, to ask them about areas of the city to avoid altogether. That turned out to be very good advice indeed .

We then arranged Friday viewings of 3 rental properties (we only got to see 2 of them in the end) and the next day we were in one of the estate agent offices applying for the house we moved into when we first moved. We stayed overnight with family who lived around 45minutes away from our new area that weekend, and we did the same on moving day (my brother and brother-in-law helped us load up a hire truck and drove it).

I had a 10-minute phone interview for my new job transfer (I sent my CV to several large government offices who I knew had been recruiting), and I think our moving day was around 6 weeks total from starting looking at the area.

suki1964

I done a five hundred mile move, most stressful thing I ever done, lost two stone in the process lol

First I stuck a pin in the map and then started from there ( I kid you not) I started to look at areas that had what we wanted, near to a train station, within reasonable distance to a big town and worked out from there.

Houses I went online. Got in contact with all the estate agents where we were looking and got them to send me details of anything they had that they thought were close to our needs. I short listed five houses over the course of a few months and then flew over to view them all in one day

For the removal its self I had my furniture packed up and shipped over and kept in storage a week before we completed. We slept on a blow up mattress in our old house and took it with us to sleep on the first night before our furniture arrived.

I think the whole process from deciding we were moving, to moving in date was 7 months, mainly because we had to research so much before hand. But once I found the house it was pretty quick

Ok so I didnt have schools to worry about....

floss2

First thing - email the LEA, and ask for details of schools with the right focus (arts / humanities / sports college status etc) and availability in the area.

Then contact the schools direct and ask to speak to the head of year(s) for your children. If it were me I would ask if their own children attend that school, as I would take that as a good indicator.

Re rentals - look on Rightmove for an idea of what local letting agents have & at what cost, then google house lettings in that area & email / telephone them all to ask to be put on their email-list.

Re jobs - contact local teaching agencies to begin their job search for you - you will probably need to go & register with them to get that help though. Also look on local & county council websites - ours has quite a few for teachers of most subjects. Can you arrange school visits for the Eater holidays?

kittypimms

I don't envy you! I did this 18 months ago - a move of about 300 miles. Sure, I got a total of 2 weeks to arrange the whole thing and move, but still, it's not an easy prospect!!

I had a job to move to, and didn't have to consider kids/ chooling, but I went about it as the first poster mentioned - got in touch with the local papers, mesageboards and Facebook groups, getting recommendations on good areas, up and down sides, and everything from crime rates to dogwalkers.
Renting for me was a no-brainer - I'm incredibly picky about where I live, so it's good to have a get-out if things don't work out.
Register with all the local estate agents, set up daily alerts on Rightmove etc, and check the local press daily for details of the local area.

I had a lot of agents doing searches for me, and ended up only viewing one house (that fit my ridiculous criteria!) sure I compromised by paying double the rent I was Up North (have moved to one of the most expensive areas in the UK outside of London!), but in the timescales allowed it was the best solution. Turns out the house suits my needs well - despite the expense!

Re the actual move, I paid a moving company to do the whole thing. Again it cost a lot (over £800 - thankfully work paid!) but it was one stress i didn't need. Sadly the house I moved into partially flooded on the day before the move, so I moved into complete disarray for the first 2 months!!

The thing I struggled with (being a singleton at the time!) was following the move - I had no friends or family nearby. Fortunatley I found a studio offering Pole and Aerials in the local area within 3 months of my move, and that enabled me to form really strong bonds and not feel as resentful at what I was missing back home!

So my top tips -
- make a list of everything you need to consider
- give a wish-list to Estate Agents. chase them regularly!
- find out as much as possible about the local area, make some contacts, Google streetview is your friend!
- Set aside a lot of contingency money!
- Get movers, cleaners, agents etc to do the work for you - you don't need the extra stress
- Telephone interview, skype, and visit when you can. if you know anyone in the local area, send them on recce missions!
- Find out about local facilities, groups, places, takeaways, restauraunts and things of interst to you
- deep breaths, and lots of Good Luck!

podperson

We did a move of just over 200 miles about 3 years ago now. It was hard work but doable. I did a huge amount of research beforehand; areas I liked, areas I wanted to avoid, what I needed to be close-by, eg shops, public transport links, doctors etc. Once I had this done I then started looking for houses available that fitted these criteria. We chose a day to travel up and organised several viewings around that. Luckily one of those turned out to be suitable so we signed the paperwork on it the same day.
If you were doing a similar thing you could try and organise viewing schools at the same time - try and organise it so you can fit as much as possible into a trip there.

Jobwise, I signed up with a lot of agencies beforehand and managed to get some temping work to see me through at first. Could you look into supply work or something until you can get settled and find a school you like?

Dunroamin

Why are you moving?

RVT2

Dunroamin wrote: »

Why are you moving?

Does it matter what the OPs personal reasons are for the move?

bylromarha

Mmm...so no clear tips for the kids school moves.

School holidays are the same here and in the new LEA, so no chance I get the day off for a personal reccy...primary schools just don't work that way.

Plus getting me a job in a primary school teaching means I need to visit the school pre application for me to show interest in the post...these days, its what you have to do to even be considered for interview.

Argh, the thread is stressing me more than helping!!!!

floss2

bylromarha wrote: »

Mmm...so no clear tips for the kids school moves.

School holidays are the same here and in the new LEA, so no chance I get the day off for a personal reccy...primary schools just don't work that way.

Plus getting me a job in a primary school teaching means I need to visit the school pre application for me to show interest in the post...these days, its what you have to do to even be considered for interview.

Argh, the thread is stressing me more than helping!!!!

Perhaps you need to consider supply teaching, or speaking to the schools you are applying to and explaining why youcannotcone to havea look around.

Also, schools in my area do have staff in over holidays - surely if you tell them you are moving 200+ miles from a teaching job they will make allowances?

Spendless

Can't your OH do the looking at the Primary schools for the children, if you do some research on-line and speak to people who live in these areas and combine it with a weekend/school hols visit so you see the surrounding area even if you aren't able to look round inside.

Re jobs, no idea. Can you post your problem on a forum for teachers, someone there may be able to tell you how they managed, or tell you it's not possible.