Need some help with my idea of relocating? to fine tune it or leave it as is. Needs some opinions and suggest?

Question

my wife and i are leaving houston. We are charlotte bound. We took a nice trip in august and we love it. And we are both in banking so the city is just what we need. Plus where we want to live is only 15-20 minutes from the city and the traffic is nowhere as bad as Houston.

So here goes my plan. We own a house here in Houston & have a prepayment penalty up in May. So we figured we would put the house up in March-April, assuming it takes 90-120 days to sell on average here. That and I dont want to sell before May to avoid the PrePymtPntly.

We want to start building a house in Charlotte from the ground up in Feb-March. A house takes maybe 6 months to build so that takes us into August-September.

By that time the house will have been up for sale from April until August/September. 5-6 months. If it does not sell then we can put it up for lease or may do that from the start.

employment, we figured we would ask around the time the house will be built in charlotte 4 a transfer

And we will be moving to Matthews North Carolina. Not into Charlotte as I have posted topics like this before and people only answered with Charlotte is the pits and crap like that. Just need some opinions on the relocation process. I hate Houston or little Meixco as it should be aptly named, and all the crime and traffic and my wife and I are both from the east coast. So please only sincere answers about relocating and the process please

Answer 1

Start the job hunting a lot sooner .
Never resign a current position until you have a firm offer for another .
Job hunting can take longer than expected ,
Just like home sales are taking longer than normal .
Be prepared to relocate separately , as both new job offers might not come through at the same time .

Good Luck

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Answer 2

You should check out the employment factor first, before making a commitment on the move.
Matthews is a great town and we have friends who moved there and LOVE it! Also have other friends who are in Charlotte, including family relations, who love the area and wouldn't consider leaving it.
It seems you've thought the process out with the exception of jobs for both of you. If the option is a relocation transfer from your existing companies of employment, go that route. If there is a relocation program, they'll take care of selling your current house.
If not, and renting is an option, you may want to rent for a while in Matthews before committing to building a new home. It may not be your dream location, after all. If it turns out to be less than you anticipate, at least you've only committed to a year's lease.

Answer 3

I live in Matthews!! Right in downtown, and I love it!! Here are some tips on the relocation process, as we made a bunch of mistakes when we moved here from Ohio:

(1) Bring your furniture. We though we would save money by having a moving sale and just buying new furniture when we got here, but the furniture here is very expensive (however there is a lot of top notch, top label furniture here if you have the money)

(2) Find a job NOW!! From elsewhere it appears the job market is flourishing here, which it is, but there are a lot of people here (as I'm sure you noticed the traffic). The job market is tight!! www.charlotte.com is one place to find classifieds, and I already e-mail you about that

(3) Keep enough money in savings to pay for your plates. They are expensive here. Upwards of $200 for the plates. You also have to prepare to take your NC drivers license test (don't worry it's a written test). Save money for that as well.

(4) Matthews has it's own newspaper called "Matthews Alive" which has a lot of fun stuff to do

(5) Pack your food to eat on the way, we spent a small fortune buying food at the rest areas, and drinks.

(6) find an insurance agent for your car/house insurance. We forgot about the car insurance part (since our insurance doesn't cover in another state). Luckily they gave us a 60 day grace period of coverage until we found insurance here.

I found a good site with some tips for you too, since this is getting to be a long response:

http://info.aavirtualoffice.com/channels/moving.htm

Hope this helps, and welcome to Charlotte!!