Logistics of moving 200 miles away

[schroeder]

Help me make a plan.
Dh and I both need new jobs, him first as he earns much more then me.
Sell our house and buy another or a flat?
The market seems crazy where we live selling wise, which I suppose is a good thing.
Flats where we are looking to move to are moving slower, so hopefully that might work in our favour?
Worried we might need to rent for a bit and rent is very pricey.
It's all very daunting.

Having done this twice I would recommend renting for 6 months unless you already know the area well. It gives you breathing space for buying and you can overlap for a couple of weeks making you able to decorate or sort anything out before you move into the new bought house.

Local knowledge of an area can be vital. Yes you will have the upheaval of packing and moving twice but completely worth it if it saves you from buying a property and you later find out something about that area meaning you are stuck.

Do you need to consider schools or is it just you and your Dh? My Dh found a job before we moved and then I found one after we had moved. We had some money saved to cover this period.

Dc are both beyond school age thankfully, oldest plans to get their own place as they are settled in a good job here.
The little one is at uni, so will have a room in the new place, but we don't have to worry about factoring her in too much.
I think you are right about renting, it's just so eyewatering! We have been really lucky we bought 20 odd years ago and our mortgage has been really low compared to current rents. It'll be a shock!

We did this last year! I'd recommend renting initially - yes, it's hideously expensive and it was difficult to find somewhere suitable but it got us up here by the date we needed for my new job. We got the house we sold on a management contract with the estate agent so that we didn't have to keep coming back to check on it (watch out for how long you can leave it by occupied for the insurance) and the sale completed about six weeks after we moved. We were given a month off council tax that month which helped to offset paying for two properties simultaneously.

We then started looking for somewhere to buy and it's been quite slow as v little on market, so a good thing we have been renting. We've just had an offer accepted on a house which needs work so it may well be a full year in the rental whilst we get work done before moving in.

If you haven't got school places to find that'll make it a lot easier! We've also found it's been good for getting to know the area and where we'd like to me, where the busy roads are, and the good shops etc.

Renting will be less expensive than buying a place and making the wrong decision.

It's true, but we are going to be a bit stretched as it is, moving to a more expensive area.

I'm not sure of the area you are moving to but a lot of air bnbs do longer stays which are actually cheaper than renting. There a bit more flexibility too. Good luck!

Wouldn't air b&bs be furnished? After all this time here we have a lot of stuff!

Storage. We couldn't find somewhere to rent that was big enough so have a garage full of furniture and boxes, and lots of boxes in the house!

We've done this sort of move several times. We've always bought straight away in the new area as I could never face moving twice. It's always worked out well for us.

At the moment the order looks like:
Dh finds local to new area/ remote working job.
Put old house on market, or the other way around?
Find new place rented or buy.
New job for me!
So many hard things to achieve.

DH was offered a job and I work freelance so just kept working from a different location (albeit with more travel) so it’s a bit different but we did it like this:
Job offer accepted, DH resigned - 3 months notice
Got house on the market ASAP
House sold - negotiated a stop date (I.e. we would be out on this date)
DH moved up to new city (work paid for hotel as part of relocation package)
DH hunted for rental places
I did masses of research on school places, areas, etc

I went up for two days and saw 8 rental
Properties and chose one - calling chosen school before and after signing contracts
House completion date was two weeks later
Removal company picked up on Friday and stored for the weekend, delivered on start of rental contract day (Monday)
Moved in
Settled kids in to schools etc
Started house hunting after about a month as we new by then that we loved the area
Offer accepted on house, moved in 8 months after arriving in the city

Was such a good decision for us, good luck!

I'm in a similar situation. We really want to move closer to family who are about 200 miles away from us. My work contract ends in June, so I am feverishly job hunting but I work in a fairly specialised job, which makes it a bit harder.
My main worry is the house sale. What if our house doesn't sell quickly enough but I have to start the new job? It's an unusual property (non standard construction and listed), so that might slow down the mortgaging process for potential buyers. Should we already put it up, even if we don't know where we are going next? I know people keep saying the market is crazy but I see so many properties in my area that stay online forever and get reduced multiple times.
I wouldn't mind moving into rented for a while but we have three pets and a toddler. I think it will be almost impossible to find a landlord who'd accept us. But trying to buy somewhere far away seems a nightmare too. Not just that we wouldn't know the area well but even just arranging viewings would be quite complicated. Sigh!

Everything is a challenge. I hadn't thought about our cat until today, such a lot of places say no pets.

Timeframe and order for us:
Month 1 - I get job offer. Resign, giving 3 months' notice. DH does same (he gets offered WFH in new location).
Month 2 - frantic decluttering.
Month 3 - head up to new location to spend weekend looking for rental. Limited choice, have to go for only one we can physically fit into. Arrange rental to start 20 working days before we need school place so we have address there. End of month 3 long weekend in new location, collect keys, visit potential new school, apply for school. Get house in first location on market.
Month 4 - finish work and use up annual leave, as does DH. Physically move all the stuff into rental in new location.
Month 5 - start new job. Get offer on house we've left few weeks later.
Month 6 - house sale completes. Start looking for somewhere to buy.
Month 9 - find somewhere we like and put offer in to buy. Accepted.

That's where we are now. Expecting it to be another 4-6 months before purchase completed and we do some work to new house before moving in.

We moved over 300 miles away last year. I was lucky enough to get a transfer to new location with work and my DH already worked from home.

Month 1 - arrange transfer with work to new area. Put house on market. Goes under offer in 10 days.
Month 2 - try and find rental in new area. Finally find one 3 weeks before we complete sale. This was the most stressful bit. Even getting to view flats was very difficult.
Month 3 - Sale completes, move, start job
Month 4-7 - get to know new area. Very few houses on the market.
Month 8 - start viewing houses
Month 9 - offer accepted on new house which is in another town again.
Month 12 (hopefully) - move in to new house. Thankfully only 10 miles away this time.

We've done this 3 times (never again). We've rented every time. It's put us in a much better position to sell and buy as no chain. The first time we did it proved to be a big mistake so thank God we didn't buy and after a year in the rental, we moved again. We had to pay for storage and rent for 2 of the 3 moves. Don't be too fussy with a rental to keep the costs down. You can be slightly out of your target area or in a busy road and save hundreds per month. Also we had 2 cats. Most ads routinely say no pets but they are more flexible when you ask. We had some competition for the last house we rented so we were asked to pay 6 months rent up front. This is doable if you've got your sale proceeds. You mention that you are moving to be near family. Is there any way to lean on them in the short term. Perhaps taking your cat or storing stuff for you. We are now in our forever home. Back in London and dunroamin.

Thanks for everyone giving their timelines. It's very helpful to get an idea!

@WorriedMutha Wow! 3 times. You definitely have the experience. We are going to meet up with our family next weekend and will ask them if they might be able to help us out. My FIL is all alone in a 5 bedroom house so I think it's definitely possible we could stay with him for a while. Not ideal but I think I need to know it's a possibility as an emergency plan otherwise I will drive myself insane with the "what ifs".

I would be making a beeline for that 5 bedroomed house with a sole occupant. Think of the heating bills he won't be able to afford without your contribution.