long distance house/life move - how?

[tricot39]

Can any of you offer some hints and tips?

We want to move to a new city at the other end of the country. How do I juggle selling a house and finding a new job? I have worries about being jobless and/or homeless!

Presumably we put our place on the market if I get a job offer in principle and then hand in my notice at current job when we get a buyer?

We will probably rent in the new city to make it simpler. Should we go furnished/unfurnished? Get an extra room for boxes or pay for storage until we buy?

I can't imagine packing and then moving with 2 preschoolers in tow and a 7 hour drive.... How?

Thanks

Just be grateful you've done it before school becomes a deciding factor.

Personally I would find the job first in the current climate unless you can survive on benefits for a while.
But of course that depends where you are moving to.
Is there somebody at the other end you are moving to be near, can they help ?

Job first. What Heswall says.

Find a job. Rent in new place whilst your old house is up for sale (bearing in mind that if you aren't flexible on price that sale could take a long time so you need to be able to pay rent + mortgage for x months).

Your new employer is very unlikely to wait for you to find a buyer for your house before you start work!

When you move pay the removals to do the packing as well. The 7hr drive is the least of it. Ideally you can palm the kids off onto grandparents for a weekend whilst you blitz the core unpacking.

Thanks for the replies.
We will be moving to be closer to family so I would hope that we could get some help.

Yes it is the realisation that schools just make it much harder which made us decide to move next year!

Job-wise is tricky. I have a 3 month notice period but lots of holidays that I could use to reduce that a lot. Not sure my boss would be happy about that tho!

New job, a friend's boss in New location wants to meet me, so I'm hoping hoping that side might be a bit flexible too.

If the worst comes to the worst I might have to leave the family to work away in the week. I don't know if we could afford to rent a new place and cover old one during a sale. I hadn't thought about benefits - what would we be entitled to?

Depending on your salary you might get help with housing benefit or tax credits but I was thinking more along the lines if you couldn't find a job straight away benefits might tide you over whilst you looked around in the new area. But not ideal at all.

It may be a longshot in the current climate, but would the new company pay for relocation expenses, including some short-term accommodation either for yourself or the family? Or could you stay with relatives and do a weekly commute until the house is sold?

Definitely negotiate a relocation package as part of your contract. We have just been v lucky to do this for DH's job and got all agent, legal, removal fees covered plus a substantial amount of the stamp duty. DH chose this over a higher base salary. You would be able to get rent covered too potentially. It has made a big difference to the value of house we could afford.

Having looked into benefits it is unlikely that we will qualify for much - maybe jobseekers allowance for DH while he starts up his business in the new location. He is self employed so goes to zero income when we move - hence the focus on my job.

Relocation expenses are an interesting idea, but they are not at all standard in my job sector and I am likely to be working for a small company, but there is no harm in asking for a bit of a contribution I suppose. To be honest I was thinking that if I managed to get a flexible job offer where they would be prepared to wait for me to start, I wouldn't be pressing too hard for anything else!

Brilliant idea about staying with relatives. If I was staying away from the family I could probably do that (albeit with a long commute) but there is no way we could stay with relatives as a family.