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Or in general...how soon after relocation do most families (who want to buy) do so?
Is there a lot of variation to this?
As for me...
I'm looking at a hypothetical situation where I might move with only a month or two of house/apartment shopping time before the school year starts. I want my kids in a certain school. I'm concerned that I wouldn't get the "within district transfer" in that time frame, especially since I'm going after a more desirable school in the district. There are very few rentals in that part of the city. I really don't want to start my children in one school and then force them to switch.
I see a theme of "rent first, buy later" wherever I look. But does that really have to happen? I grew up not far from there, so it's not as though I have no idea what it's like. How long do people advocate renting first? (I have a friend who moved to a college town and decided ahead of time that she would buy within three months - and they did). Certainly if I could get a short-term rental in that school attendance area, that would probably be optimal. I just don't see that happening.
I guess I should add that I mean to rent something very short-term while looking. It wouldn't necessarily be in that school district at all. It's not like I'm going to shop for everything long-distance. But I would need to find a place before the school year started, or then I'd really have a problem.
I see a theme of "rent first, buy later" wherever I look. But does that really have to happen? I grew up not far from there, so it's not as though I have no idea what it's like.
That makes a big difference! "Rent first, buy later" is excellent advice for someone who's never lived in a particular city before. But in your case you already have a good feel for the area and know exactly where you want to be. So in your case I see no reason not to start shopping for a house in the school district you prefer.
We moved 1K miles. We didn't know much about the area but we had looked at the school for dd (private) before we moved. We chose a series of apartment complexes long distance to visit in a short weekend and decided on one we liked. We rented it for a year.
Turned out that while it seemed close to dd's school, the morning commute made it take much, much longer than we expected. It gave us better perspective on where we needed to buy in order to be close to her school. And, as it happens, hubby's job was good but he found a better one just a few months after we moved to his commute to work also changed.
If we had bought right off we would have been in a bad position. Renting gave us the chance to shake out all the little problems and make a much better choice.
Well, while growing up my parents always bought before we moved. Since Dad was career military we knew where and when we were going. Always closed on the house before the actual move.
Me......I just moved, because I bought something somewhere else that struck my fancy.
We bought right off when we relocated. We knew we were going to be there about 3.5 years because I planned to retire, and we didn't have children at home, so we weren't real picky about location, although I knew it was a good area because all my co-workers lived there. This was in 2006, houses were appreciating nicely, and we figured the house would appreciate enough to cover the real estate commission when we sold when I retired. Well, guess what? This was Labor Day weekend, 2006. The top of the market was August and September, 2006. Ooops. Our subdivision was hard hit with foreclosures, it took us over a year to sell, and we ended up selling for less than we bought it. Should have rented. Hindsight is 20/20.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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We moved about 800 miles. I came up first, to operate my new business here, while we were selling the old home. It took about 5 months, because the SF Bay Area economy was not that great in 1992. Meanwhile we had an accepted offer on a home here, so ended up with a simultaneous close.
When I moved from Philly to Phoenix, I rented for 2 years to be sure I wanted to stay.
When I moved from Phoenix to Raleigh, we looked at houses during the first day of our first ever visit to Eastern NC. We put a deposit on a lot on day #2 and signed contacts with the builder when we returned home a few days later.
The first time, we rented for a year, then bought. We ended up in a neighborhood that wasn't very nice, but we were also young and naive, so I think our inexperience was more the key to our lack of success there.
The second time, we rented for five years. The way the housing market was, renting allowed us to live in a much nicer area than we could afford to buy in. Things stabilized after a while, though, and we were able to buy in a good neighborhood about 18 months ago.
It really depends on the housing market. If you know the area you're moving to, then you could jump into buying, but things can change a lot in even five years. If you only know of the area because you lived there as a child/teen/young adult and it's been a decade or two since you lived there, it might be smarter to rent while you figure out the nuances of the different neighborhoods.
I wish we had thought more before buying but at least you can sell and make a profit most times on your home . Now my husbands employer is talking about us re locating and frankly they would have to help us and then some . could we sell ? yes we can but we would need a profit too . this is still in the talking stages so I would say rent for at least 2-3 yrs where you moved and don't be so quick to buy .
When moving from NJ to SC we rented a 3-month short-term rental and dumped 90% of our belongings in a storage unit. Began neighborhood hunting on Day 2 after we arrived. Found a house about a month later, and set closing for the week before our short-term rental ended so that we could move at our leisure.
We've been in the house we bought almost 10 years now.
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