Another, "Should I Move to Phoenix?" thread (for sale, rental)

[jmw51882]

I currently live on the east coast, where I am employed as an accountant. I have family in the Phoenix area and my mom who lives on the east coast now just notified her employer she will be retiring in September and moving to Phoenix.

The plan was to find a job first then move at my own expense. I have had several interviews, for which I have paid travel expenses. I am willing to pay for my own relocation as well. The general response I've gotten from employers however, is contact us once you are here. We're interested but we aren't willing to wait 2 weeks for you to move.

This puts me in a difficult position. Do I quit my current position, pack everything and move and find a job once I'm there? Should I continue conducting a cross country job search and wait to strike gold?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Have you moved to Phoenix without a job? How long did it take to find something?

[Bondurant]

Unless you're applying for a specialized professional position I doubt there will be much interest in an employee candidate thousands of miles away that says he/she will move.

I moved here without a job and made it okay. There's plenty of work out here if you're willing to get your foot in the door while waiting for something more worthwhile and lucrative.

I don't know much about accounting but there is a lot of financial firms out here: banks, credit card companies, investment firms.

[sandy6879]

We also moved here without employment set up. I operate a home-based business so I needed to rebuild it and couldn't until I was here. It took my husband 4-5 weeks to find a job in his field. Stressful, yes. But we ran into the same thing you are running into, and we didn't have a choice. Thankfully we had sold our previous house and had money to live on until we got things up and running again.

[AZgarden]

You will need a recruiter for an accountant job. My daughter has had a couple excellent positions obtained from a recruitment agency. Now they are calling her instead of her calling them. It's just the nature of the beast here in Phoenix.

[crystalys]

From your post I am guessing that you have some kind of savings because you say you have paid your own travel expenses several times for interviews and have funds to move yourself here. If so then I would go further to assume that you have enough to live on for a period of time if you move here first. So I would think you could do that and do your job search locally with better success.

[yukon]

Don't feel bad, I'm just up the road in ABQ and I get the same response, call us when you get here.

If you do tax work, try timing your move for late December. I've had good luck doing that and finding work immediately by freelance and with temp agencies during tax season. Firms will hire on temps for tax season and keep you on after if it's a good fit. If it's not a fit or they only need you for gas season and you do a good job, you have a good local reference. Win/win either way.

[jmw51882]

Thank you all for your suggestions and support. It gives me hope that I won't be shooting myself in the foot if I move without having secured employment first.

Concerning money, I don't have a large amount saved but I would have a continued stream of income from rental properties. My house has been listed for sale with no offers yet. Because I'm not in a position of needing to sell, I plan to turn it into another rental once I move as well. Problem is I won't qualify for another mortgage if I still have the house.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by jmw51882

Thank you all for your suggestions and support. It gives me hope that I won't be shooting myself in the foot if I move without having secured employment first.

Concerning money, I don't have a large amount saved but I would have a continued stream of income from rental properties. My house has been listed for sale with no offers yet. Because I'm not in a position of needing to sell, I plan to turn it into another rental once I move as well. Problem is I won't qualify for another mortgage if I still have the house.

That might not be a problem if you move to PHX without a job. You won't know where you'd be working, so renting might be a good initial option. It would give you time to learn the metro too, and find the area you like. You could always try to sell your current house later, once the lease is up (assuming you do the typical one year lease) and then buy in the PHX metro area.