Hope to move to Austin from Virginia.........job outlook? (San Antonio: for sale by owner, real estate)

[amyer77]

How are the jobs holding up in the current economy in Austin? My husband is in IT and I am a drafter (land surveying, specifically). Are there a lot of layoffs? Are jobs hard to come by? What are our chances of landing a job being that we are from out of state? We are sorta thinking of selling our house first and just going. Is that crazy? We haven't had any resposes in the jobs we've applied to, so we are thinking the distance thing is holding us back. Any opinions? We really want to leave Virginia. Thanks

[centralaustinite]

As many here have noted, it can be difficult to get a job in Austin without an Austin address!

That said, overall the economy here is in a holding pattern, unemployment is up and several companies have announced layoffs. The economy is not flat out terrible but finding a job will be harder than it was 1-2 years ago.

There is a large pool of IT workers here, so there is competition for every job and the salaries may be lower than what you expect. Real estate and construction are definitely slowing.

Do you have savings? Can you support yourselves for 6-12 months without a job? Do you have any sort of personal or professional network here?

Be careful that your desire for a change does not lead you to jump from the frying pan into the fire!!

With the national economy in such bad shape, I would stay put if you have good jobs where you are.

[amyer77]

Thankyou for your comments. That is sort of what we were debating. The area we are in is pretty bad in many ways, but the school systems are what bother me the most. My kids are 6 and 4, and in this area, we can't afford private schools or even to live in a better school zone. So that is the MAIN push. The kids are getting older, and more exposed. We do both have pretty good jobs, but if we lost the ones we have(I hope not) we would be in big trouble, because the jobs in this area are pretty sparse, even before the economy crash. We know we don't want to stay here forever, and we are afraid if we wait too long, we will lose too much value in our house to sell and relocate(if we haven't already). The real estate in our area is not nearly doing as bad as other areas of the country, but we are not immune. I was thinking of putting the house up for sale by owner(since there is no real hurry), and using the money saved on commission to help with the gap in employment and the move itself. Thanks for you input!

[centralaustinite]

Before moving your family across the country without jobs in hand, I would take a real hard look at your schools. There can be so much gossip and misinformation out there. Even the perspective of someone whose kids attended a school 5 years ago can be totally out of date.

Start with the district web site, visit your local school, talk to the principal, talk to teachers. You may find your fears diminished or confirmed but you need good, current information plus your own observations. What is the district policy on transfers? Are there charter schools nearby? Find out.

Call the local private schools, ask about financial aid. Find out exactly what the tuition is. Look at your budget, can you find ways to live more cheaply?

Could you sell your house and RENT a house in a better school district? But keep your jobs?

All of these things are much less disruptive personally and financially than leaving your jobs and moving across the country to an unfamiliar area with schools that you do not know much about (and then you have to start the learning process all over again).

I do not know your local market, but FSBO is rarely the way to go. Closing costs etc can eat up much of your profit. FWIW, my advice is to stay put, really research your school options, and at most, sell your house and rent in a better school district. Now is the time to preserve your savings and capital, not risk it all on a long-distance move without jobs lined up.

good luck!

[Jennibc]

We are about to make the move to Austin. We decided that we wanted to go last March, but my husband FINALLY got an offer at the end of November. He is an embedded software engineer and has many years of specialized experience so I think that made the search even more difficult. We were at the point last summer where we were so frustrated that we were ready to just put our house on the market like you and go. Our better judgment kicked and we decided to hold out.

We kept hearing things on this board like "you won't be able to find anything from outside the area", "this is a who you know kind of market", etc, etc. It was all very discouraging.

It took a while, but he finally got an offer and the job description appears to have been written just for him. They are completely paying for our relocation, he will be making more now than he does here (and Seattle has a much higher cost of living so a slight raise is really quite a large raise) and he really liked everyone he interviewed with. In summation, this looks like an awesome job with an awesome group of people.

If we had just sold our house and moved down there with nothing, that would have put him in state of desperation. He would have had to jump on any contract position that was available. Who knows what the compensation would have been like and we wouldn't have benefits. Plus we would have had to cover the move ourselves. While this may have been something we would have been OK with a decade ago, with a young son we just felt it was too much of a risk.

So, yes, I think it takes longer to find something when one is looking from out of state. But it's not impossible. The reason he got this job is because the company was having trouble filling the position. They wanted a very specific skills set and type of experience, my husband had it. They had to go through all of their Austin candidates before he even got a call for the phone screen.

So it's really a trade off. Your husband would likely get more interviews if he were in Austin but you take a big risk moving with nothing waiting for you. What if you were to move and the economy worsened and now you're in Austin and NOBODY is getting interviews - locals or otherwise. How would you feel about that? That's what we asked ourselves. What we decided was that despite our wanting to go, it would be too stressful to get down there and end up having to deplete our savings to live while he looked for something else.

Good luck with your decision!

[amyer77]

Thanks so much for your input(all). We definently don't want to put ourselves in a VERY bad situation, and the economy is big time scary. I think for now we are going to just keep sending resumes out, and build up our experience with our current employers. Thank you, it is nice to get an outsiders point of view!

[Theresee]

I spent most my childhood growing up in VA. with my parents saying don't get too comfortable were moving back to Texas. When I finally did move to Texas, what I miss most about VA, were the things I took for granted, like the guy down the street that use to work on my car for free, and were to go for everything. I also, missed the mountains, for when I first move to Texas I moved to San Antonio. In one of my jobs I took a tour of the hill county and new I could stay in Texas! That was about 20 years ago.

Do you have family in VA, or Texas because one thing you have to get use to is Texas gave the meaning of Good old Boy State.

If you looking to give your kids a better environment Austin is not it, When we lived in Austin the city was using a lot of out taxes to help fight gangs. The hill Country would for that. Its a joy to be around a child that is still a child.

Having said all this my parents moved back to Texas when they were 65, and had a hard time adjusting because all the friends were in VA. so I agree your at a perfect age to move. I hope whatever decision you make that God will keep you safe in the palm of his hand

[chickenfry]

are charter schools available in Va? Could you homeschool?

[Trainwreck20]

When we lived in Austin the city was using a lot of out taxes to help fight gangs

Are you talking about the same Austin? There is some gangs, I am sure, but you would have to work to really find them and I am pretty sure that there is miniscule fraction dedicated to gang issues.

[readymade]

If I were you, I'd come out for a visit, make sure it's somewhere you want to move to, and open a mailbox here so that you have a local address. And think about changing your cell phone number to an Austin number.

My husband & I moved here without jobs at the end of August. I started looking for a job in July and didn't find something until November. I had turned down one opportunity that looked like a hell job... but it was really really hard because I was so desperate for a job at that point. The job I ended up taking wasn't exactly my dream job, either. But it's not terrible.

My point it, yeah... it's really hard to find a job. I know a bunch of very bright talented people who have been laid off recently. Just be careful about moving here without a job.