Whether you're considering moving for work or pleasure, you might want to head far from your current living space - even into a different country - to find your next home. Of course, there are lots of considerations that come along with seeking a new place hundreds or thousands of miles away from where you now live. Use this advice to make your house-hunting efforts as powerful as possible.
Harness the power of the internet
"The internet is an excellent tool for preliminary house-hunting research."
Finding a great home for the right price on the opposite coast or a different continent is still complicated, but it's nowhere near as difficult as it was in the pre-internet era. Tools from Google Maps to real estate database Zillow and easy availability of local news and municipal government websites, as well as quality-of-life metrics, mean you can paint a picture of areas you might like to move before you ever visit.
Leverage the valuable data the internet provides to answer as many questions as you can during the start of your hunt for a new home. You can then fill in the blanks during in-person visits. This approach requires a little planning and thought ahead of time, but the payoff is better organization and a clearer understanding of the things you need to experience in person.
Create a schedule and a budget
You may have the money and time to make several trips to a variety of desirable locations, or you may only be able to factor in a few visits. Either way, you need to make each excursion meaningful and productive. Start by developing a budget for trips to places you might want to relocate and include the costs of flights, hotel stays, meals, a rental car, gas and any other likely expenses. As Zillow pointed out, you may also need to make some short-notice trips, which can be especially expensive. Make sure to take that potential need into account, too.
Once that's wrapped up, you can see how many trips you can afford to take and use those visits as the first part of a schedule for finding a new home. Locating a great fit - or not discovering a home you love - will have a major impact on your schedule as it gets closer to your proposed moving day, so don't worry too much about detailed planning for that part of it until the time comes.
Find the right movers to meet your needs
A long distance move can mean covering thousands of miles. That's difficult enough to do as a personal trip with little baggage, so you'll likely want to discuss the trip with some moving companies and seek out some estimates. In this case, finding a mover with experience providing positive experiences for movers traveling across the country or the world is vital. Atlas is proud of our strong track record on long-distance moves, and we're ready to help you make the trip.