Planning a big move? 7 steps to avoid regrets
It’s costly to move.
With real estate fees, movers and other items, a couple or family can easily drop $50,000 relocating. And if you get there and find you don’t like it, that’s an expensive mistake.
So while we’re all for the adventure of living in new places and grabbing new opportunities, we also feel a well-researched move has a far higher likelihood of being successful.
You had a great week in Miami on vacation and want to move there? Your visit with relatives in Idaho was a blast, and you want to join them full time? Whoa.
We suggest you follow this seven-step plan to know yourself and your move. new city, wait a year to buy a home. Move there. Rent. Learn about the neighborhoods, commutes, the weather and about being away from where you are now.
Sprinkled among all the helpful statistics on CityData.com are stories of regrets from people who moved and were sorry: the Dallas suburbanite who thinks of the song “Little Boxes” now and longs for a place with “a bit more soul; the Cleveland resident who was surprised by all the cloudy days and aging infrastructure; the unhappy Denverite who says, “The mountains are nice, but I miss living close to a large body of water. I also miss the chaos of a giant metro area.”
Any move can fail, but the poorly researched one is asking for failure.
Whether you’re running to them or away from, it helps to think long term about the role of family in your life.
Getting away is essential for some; for others, family represents the entirety of their social life. A move needn’t be permanent, but understanding what you’d gain or lose in terms of family will help
make one more successful.
Jump in. Wherever you move, the responsibility rests on you to become part of the community.
If you moved to the Pacific Northwest to enjoy the natural beauty, get out and hike. If you’re on the Gulf Coast to fish, go fish. The sooner you start doing things, by yourself or with the friends you’ve made, the happier you’ll be.
If you still own a home in another state while you are renting in your new location, taxes can trip you up. New York, California and Illinois can be particularly aggressive in investigating people who claim out-ofstate residency.
Keep in mind the 183day rule: If you spend more than 183 days in
New York, and you have a home there, you’ll owe state and local taxes to New York on all your income, whether you earned it in New York or not. Best to check with your accountant and keep scrupulous records of your whereabouts and spending.