For those who have relocated across the country

[ZanyQuail]

We are planning to move from the East to the South West of England before my daughter starts primary school. We are moving closer to family. This gives us a deadline of January 2027 in order to get a school application submitted in time.

We will need to sell our house, get new jobs, find a new nursery, and most likely rent for a few months ahead of buying a new house.

It feels overwhelming to say the least!
For those that have already relocated - what order did you do things in? And do you have any tips?

We are primarily looking at moving to Bath or nearby.

We did this. Started with getting new jobs then immediately put the house on the market. While we waited for the house sale to go through we rented in the new area. This meant paying rent and mortgage which wasn't great but luckily we had some savings to tide us over. Once house was sold we started looking around in the new area. We were lucky we managed to start out new jobs after the school term had ended so it didn't impact the kids for that academic year, but you won't have that issue if she hasn't started school yet.

You'll probably have to rent, unless you can stay with family, but when it's only for a short time you can get somewhere a bit smaller and cheaper and suck it up for a bit.

Good luck, lovely part of the country :)

In this market, selling your house is the number 1 priority and until you've sold, you likely can't start to look for new jobs unless you can be entirely remote.

....unless you have loads of savings, in which case, you may be able to job hunt and then rent. We've moved approx 4 times, crossing the country pretty much every time and have moved for a new job. The job had a long notice period though so house sale was possible (or we were renting anyway). For this last one, DH and I ended up living in different places as house hadn't sold, but he needed to start his job. DC3 stayed in school near me and then moved once house sold.

Given the housing market that is a very optimistic timescale.

I'd get the jobs first and the house sale second.

I bought first and then looked for a new job as needed the stability of income to prove for mortgage. Commuted from new location once a week or as little as I could get away with. I probably took the piss slightly but it was a means to an end. Luckily found a remote working role pretty quickly.

A year and a bit is optimistic? How long would you envisage it taking?

Thank you! So you packed up everything and left your house while the sale was still going through?
we will be about 4/5 hours from our current location so it feels daunting!

This is a how long is a piece of string question. If you have a well priced house, selling in an area with in demand houses, you might sell and have completed within 6 months. Ours took almost 2 years to actually get a decent offer and then 5 months to get to completion.

Yes, exactly. Last time we relocated, I managed to push the house sale through in ten weeks from offer to completion, and that offer was made within a week or ten days of putting the house on the market, but that was a good, well-presented straightforward, four-bed house in a sought-after village with an excellent primary, and we priced competitively (though it went for considerably over asking price as there was a lot of interest).

But if we sell the house we live in now, it will take a lot longer — much more expensive, and quirkier.

OP, we also did it in the order of jobs, move, rent temporarily, house sale.

Wow, I couldn’t imagine doing it with having to sell a house and look for a new job!

We moved 3 hours from London to the midlands, but we were renting, and dh job went fully remote so it was easy. We just found a rental and moved. I didn’t need to have to work where we are now (no extortionate London rent!) so childcare no issue, just had to do the usual finding new school places.

We ended up buying here a year later and dh actually found a local job soon after.

Hats off to people who do it the hard way though. I don’t think I could have got my head around it all.

Thanks for this. I think we are aware we will need to price our house competitively and it’s in a sought after location.

so were you paying mortgage and a separate rent simultaneously?

We moved to the South West from Midlands. It was a bit easier in that we had remote jobs. We stuck our house on the market as the estate agents in the SW area refused to show us around without a firm offer in hand. After that it moved very quickly. The kids got placed halfway through the year (not brilliant), but it all worked out.

The key question is income. Can you afford to continue working at your old job until the move is complete? If not, I would look at getting at least one spouse into a job in your new area first, especially if you need a mortgage on the new property.

We moved from the south to Scotland this year. We didn't need to change job, but we did have to provide evidence the move would not impact our employment (security and salary). Then the process was really smooth, sell, buy, port mortgage. We were fortunate and did everything in <16 weeks from listing our house.

My recommendation would be to find jobs first, then list house for sale as soon as you have accepted offers, list through your notice period and be prepared to rent as the sale goes through. If you can stay with family, ideal. I'd be prepared to stay in rental/with family for 6-12 months and house hunt in the mean time. You do need a good buffer of savings to do this as you need to factor in existing mortgage, bills, rental + more bills, removals (££ for cross-country moves), 2x solicitors (split transactions), estate agent fees, stamp duty.

The alternative is find jobs, move into rented, list yours for rent for a while and then look to sell later once you've found the right area. However, the change in renters rights could make this trickier and a much longer process, but might be your only option if you cannot afford to rent whilst you wait for your sale.

We did this when we moved out of London to Hampshire 2 years ago.

We were looking to move generally to the area but the first thing was getting a job - we then had a focus for our search. It was a teaching job so had to revoilve around school terms etc.

Our timeline was
Got new job in April for September start
Applied for schools in new location (we couldnt be too picky about school but luckily our preferred one had space)
Put flat up for sale end of July
Moved to rented accommodation in August
Children started new school September
Accepted offer on flat in December
Viewed houses in February - offer accepted
Flat sale went through mid May, moved to new house end of May

We chose to rent as it made everything easier - the flat was more desirable as it was empty and there was no chain (it still took ages to sell though - we had to drop price as estate agent was over ambitious), also it made the move to the new house much less stressful as we werent doing it all on one day. The new house search was also much easier as we were in the area and so could work out where we wanted to move rather than having to do it in daytrips down. It obviously cost us extra for almoist a year with the mortgage + rent payments and double council tax but we felt we had no other option. Dont underestimate the ability of preperty transactions to drag on for no apparent reason so always allows extra time!

We moved from London to Frome, near Bath. We sold our London house and rented for a while as we looked for a house.

with regards to work, my husband is retired and I’m freewheeling to retirement. I’m a nurse by profession but only work part time, and am currently doing bank shifts at the RUH in Bath. But we’re fortunate in that we have no mortgage and had some equity and savings to do it like that.

I can’t advise on schools as we don’t have kids.

I'm not that poster, but yes to paying a mortgage and rent simultaneously. Our last move (from the UK to Ireland) involved DH getting a job first, moving over, DS and I staying on to see out the final couple of of months of the academic term (I work in education) and pack up while we found him a school place in the new setting, us all moving in the vac to live in a rental while our old house went on the market and looking around at houses here.