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Anyone have anything to say on this topic? I moved to a place before a lot of internet research was available and it was a great move (visited it once). This past one, I researched a long while, but not the place for me. I had underestimated several key factors. I doubt a long visit before hand would have changed a thing. Living somewheres versus visiting somewheres are different.
Barring a move you have to make, how did you decide? Does visiting a place before hand really matter (and how much time to spend there?) or is it a crap shoot anyways?
I spent countless hours for months researching my move and visited a few times. There are many people here who love this area. It has a lot of great qualities...just not "home" for me. After one year, we will be making another move...as long as we can secure jobs there first. There is not as much info online about my next location...just going on a feeling.
I am an obsessive researcher. The internet has made things so easy! Especially forums such as C-D where you can interact and get to "know" some of the locals. As long as you week through the extreme sides (best place in the world vs. worst place in the world) you can get a pretty good feel for the area. It also depends on your catalyst for move. If it's weather, family, jobs, education, etc.
I am from California originally, but moved to Massachusetts as a teenager. Since then I've lived in 12 other states plus Puerto Rico. My wife is born and raised in Rhode Island and has never lived further than 1 mile from her original house. In June we're moving to Las Vegas. Our catalyst is weather. With some research about average temps, extreme temps, PLUS talking to the locals about what it's really like, we're comfortable with our decision.
My wife and I have visited many times over the years and we went back for a full week staying with a couple of friends in the suburbs to experience a little bit of life "off the strip". We did things as if we lived there.. went grocery shopping, stayed in some nights, etc. For us that was enough time to decide that it was worth taking the gamble (pun intended).
We're renters, so we scheduled an ABF trailer for the end of May and have contacted a realtor on the C-D Las Vegas forum who said to call him around May 1st so he can get a list of rental houses available for us in the area we want to live. Fortunately our friend who lives there is willing to go take a look at our short list. With technology like Skype, we can go along with her! Then we pack the dogs in the car and make the 2700 mile drive to our new home.
Alot of what we'll learn will happen after we get there, but the research has given us a nice foundation and made us more comfortable with our decision.
Before I moved, I visited places I was interested in on vacation, then did online research, then visited again, then asked locals about it. There's this web place called City-Data, might have heard of it, best ever for finding out about areas you're interested in!
It's a crap shoot either way. I think you have to "feel" a place out. No amount of planning can predict how much (or how little) a place will inspire you.
We've made two major relocations and one minor one (~100 miles away/same state). To some degree, it's a crap shoot.
For the first relocation I did some research online, but it was many years ago and what I was able to find on the net was limited by today's standards. I subscribed to the area's major newspaper and one smaller one, which I read daily for several months. I had one online acquaintance who lived in the area that I tapped for information, but other than that I knew nobody there and had never been there. Of course, her perspective from being born/raised there, her lifestyle and financial situation, her values, etc. may not have been similar to mine and I kept that in the back of my mind as she provided input. Fortunately, I had the type of career which would allow me to get a job anywhere, so that wasn't a factor. (I used past tense, since I am now retired.) Although she always encouraged me to visit, I never took the offer seriously since other than knowing her a bit online, I really didn't know her.
One day I just decided I was going to make the move. I took a leave of absence from work, (in case I wanted to go "home"), packed up my SUV, loaded my pets and off I went. It was even better than I expected and was the best thing I ever did. Two months later I returned to pack up the rest of my belongings and have them shipped to the new location, said a more permanent "goodbye" to my friends and family, put my house up for sale, and officially quit my job. I loved the area I lived in, I loved the state, I made many friends, there was so much to see/do, I easily found employment and also got married there. I never wanted to, nor expected to leave.
Sometimes life throws us a curve-ball and circumstances called for our relocating closer to DH's parents, who are getting on in years and needed someone nearby. They had retired many years ago to another state and we had visited many times. I knew it wasn't a place I really loved, but we moved there nonetheless. We needed to be close by, but didn't want to be that close, so we researched areas in their state to move to.
By this time internet info was abundant and we researched and researched. We put our house up for sale and then flew in to make concrete living arrangements. This was a place we visited many times and while I knew I didn't love the region, I didn't expect to dislike it as much as I did. In fact, "dislike" doesn't even describe it. I really, really tried. We bought a gorgeous new home in a lovely area and I tried to derive as much pleasure as I could from it's loveliness. Even that didn't take the edge off how unhappy I was. There is nothing wrong with the area, it's just not us and not the right fit.
Less than a year ago, we moved another 100 miles away. (This is much closer to his parents and within the "too close" boundary we initially tried to avoid.) What a difference 100 miles makes. I am no longer unhappy and actually like where we are now. (I say "I" instead of "we" because DH just goes with the flow and to a large degree doesn't care where we are.) I don't love, love, love it the way I did the first relocation, but at least I am happy.
The moral of this long post is the more research I actually did, the worse the moves turned out. (I know that logically it makes little sense, but that's what happened.)
Does visiting a place before hand really matter...
or is it a crap shoot anyways?
I think having a solid reason for "GOING to" is what will matter most.
Those reasons tend to be of a theme based on where we are in life (career, schools, COL,
climate, cultural, whatever)... but whatever it is that YOU need and value it better be there.
The crap shoot part I think is about the 50 or 100 people who will be in your life once there.
Your co-workers, neighbors, doctors and dentist, etc... none of which you can know in advance.
Also, there is research and then there is RESEARCH, lol. Before I move I researched for six months because even though I had been through the area I was looking at, I knew I would not be able to spend time visiting before actually making a move.
For example the one of the cities I was considering has a higher than average crime rate. Red flag, needed to look further. Digging a little deeper however showed there was an average of just 1 murder per year and low instances of other types of violent crimes, most of them being assault and arson. Arson is not something I worry about being a victim of and digging into the assaults, most of them happen in an area where there are a lot of bars and a lot of tourists, again not something I felt I'd have to worry about too much. So while the crime rate raised a red flag, further research gave me a clearer picture of what there was or wasn't a need to worry about.
Same with weather, I didn't just look at average highs and lows and precipitation. I went to a site that has the history you can look at and see what the weather was every single day for years back, which is exactly what I did. I calculated dew points, looked at gardening websites to find different zones and possible micro climates, looked at the history of natural disasters in the area, etc.
I went that in-depth on every thing I could think of that might matter to me.
I did make that move several year ago, there have been very, very few surprises and I couldn't be happier.
We just recently bought the land for our retirement home.
I knew we wanted to be out of Florida, I needed a change of seasons and DH didn't want tons of snow.
We narrowed down the area and I started researching....nothing was ringing our bell. So we took a trip to the general area and wandered a bit farther than planned. And fell in love with Ft Payne Alabama.
When we got home we called a realtor, lucked out, got a great one and made another trip up. By the end of that week, we had made an offer on 5 acres. Since then, we've discovered what a gem of a place this is.
So sometimes research can help.....sometimes a place just feels "right".
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