So we are considering a cross country move (from east coast Tri-state area to Midwest area). Company is offering a lump sum for relo. It seems generous but really not sure how much something like this costs. Some quick googling seems like it could be anything from 10,000 to 70,000! I obviously know this can vary a lot but would love to hear some first hand experiences. For context we currently have a 4 bedroom/2300 square foot house and 2 vehicles. Any help would be appreciated!
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Depends on what you are considering? Just the cost of physical relocation of you possessions or all in including costs to sell your home, temporary living expenses, any cancellation fees or connection fees, costs to register vehicles, school or daycare changes, etc.
I’ve done this several times before i was married and it can be quite costly as an all in amount.
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We have done this twice, just finishing up our recent one so I have the numbers.
Moved 2 cars, 1800 sq ft house and 2 kids. We packed ourselves, hired movers to load, used ABF relocubes to hold our stuff which will be stored x30d, and then I flew with the girls and DH drove across country with the pets. Oh and we shipped the second car. Right now that's all running about $11k (car shipping, relocube shipping, movers, packing supplies, mileage/lodging, airplane tickets). That's not including the costs for selling our home, buying a new one, new daycare enrollment fees, etc.
So I think it just depends on how you do it. We moved with ABF twice and we love being the ones in charge of loading and trusting our belongings get to where they need to - heard too many horror stories of movers holding items hostage or mysterious accidents!
We also moved much cheaper before when it was pre-kids and a 2 bedroom apartment. Both times though we significantly purged and downsized.
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@MamaG: I guess I am figuring all-in. Basically, what adds up beyond the obvious packing a house and moving company? They’ve offered what seems like a generous amount (and I think they are considering it a relocation “bonus”) but I feel like we could burn through it pretty quickly when adding up all the expenses.
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@MenagerieMama: thanks so much! that’s exactly the kind of breakdown I am looking for. I especially wasn’t sure about shipping a car.
I think I am most worried about the (potential) money lost from selling a home/buying a new one. Was it a nerve wracking mess? Did you rent when you first relocated?
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So we've moved internationally a few times, but never within the US. I would contact a couple of different relocation companies to give you quotes. These numbers can vary wildly though. For our last move, there was a €6k difference between the high and low quote (but it was only furniture and stuff, no cars). We've never owned a home, so we don't have to deal with that aspect, but we did need temporary housing on both ends of the move. For our last move, we spent 6 weeks "homeless" and went through 2 airbnbs and 3 hotels between when the apartment was packed out and when we moved into our new place. I imagine you wouldn't want to rush into purchasing a new home without knowing the area, so you would probably be looking at a short term rental.
Our relocation allowance was a generous 5 figures, but we still went through it quickly (6 weeks of hotels/airbnb, lots of eating out since we had a tiny kitchen, paying school enrollment fees/tuition in the new country, etc.). Plane tickets to the new location and the moving company were separate from the relocation allowance and paid directly by the employer.
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@bloved: I know in my area (east coast), the norm is that the seller pays both the buyer's and seller's real estate agent commissions. I was told in a recent home buying seminar that this along with other miscellaneous costs usually totals around 6% of the value of the property.
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We've moved cross country twice since 2014. My husband and I moved from ME to TX in 2014. Before the move we got rid of all of our old hand-me-down college furniture, so it was really barebones - boxes of stuff, one couch, and one chair. We had amoving company for that stuff and we shipped our two cars then flew down. That cost us around 10k.
This past fall we moved back (TX to ME) now with a house full of furniture (2 bed/2ba 1500sq ft) and a 9 mo old. We knew we couldn't spend that much again, so we went as cheap as we could reasonably go. This time we used a Pod, however we did hire movers to help pack it (we were on the third floor). I flew home with DD, and shipped one car; DH drove cross-country with the other. We had to store our stuff in the Pod for 2 months, and then we had movers help us unpack it.
This move totaled around 8k.So basically, there is very little chance of you spending less than 10k to move and like others said you also have to consider other things like rental deposits, daycare deposits, re-registering your vehicles ($600!).
So if this is something you really want to do, price out each aspect of the move and then add 10%. Ask for that to be your 'relocation' bonus.
Good luck!
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And don’t forget you will get taxed on the bonus. So if you spend 10k in moving expenses and your relocation bonus is 10k, it won’t cover the move in it’s entirety.
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To save on costs, could you sell your cars and then buy secondhand when you get there?
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@bloved: we spent $1850 to ship (open) our little Nissan Versa from VA to WA if that gives you an idea.
In terms of home buying, we did things sort of crazy. We have 4 pets, so renting is really hard. We were leaving a housing market that was warming up, entering a super crazy sellers market. So we actually went under contract for a house (sort of) sight unseen (my mom saw it for us and we video chatted for the inspection) and we will close on that in 3 weeks. We found a realtor that I met when I went out to interview a couple months ago, aggressively stalked redfin, got to know the market and did lots of research to figure out where we would buy. We were moving back to the general area we lived for 10 years before, so we weren't totally uninformed. We are listing our old house next week. Luckily we're going to make significant gains on it, so that's good. Though due to the difference in housing value, despite being the same square footage old house to new house is almost 4x the price we originally paid for old (now about 2x what we will sell the old for). But because we decided to buy before selling our old house, it is stressful. We're buying with 5% down and then will recast our mortgage once we sell the old house (with 20% down) because the market we bought in really won't take offers with contingencies.
We also needed to stay in an airbnb for a few days while we had our things packed at the old house but hadn't left yet. Our yard is getting trashed by neighborhood kids on summer vacation with nothing better to do and we're having to pay someone long distance to clean it up. We had the floors refinished and are paying $$ bill without seeing the finished product. We're staying with family and then another airbnb for a month until we close on our house.
So it's been insanely stressful but will hopefully work out! Happy to answer any other questions. This move has taken a ton of planning.
ETA: We both work in healthcare, and have some moving bonus (but needs to be what IRS counts as moving expense - so no costs related to home selling/buying) and I had a general sign on bonus (which will be taxed). Having employers cover realtor commission, etc is not heard of. I do have some friends in the tech industry with much more comprehensive relo packages.
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