Planning the move - what worked for you?

[Dazzlin]

Hi everyone,

We're about to exchange contracts on the sale of our home and are planning for completion and the move in April. However, I could do with some help to settle a 'difference of opinion' in our house about the moving process.

My plan is for the house contents to be packed and shipped when we complete, and for us all to be on a plane that day/within a few days. This would mean organizing short-term furnished accommodation before or on arrival while we wait for our entire possessions to turn up 10-12 weeks later, but this does in turn give us plenty of time to have a good look around before deciding where we want to live longer term and finding a long-term unfurnished rental (or even a place to buy).

However, my wife prefers the idea of shipping everything early so that it arrives soon after our arrival, meaning we would only need expensive furnished/hotel accommodation for the time it takes to find and arrange longer-term unfurnished accommodation. She feels that having our things around us earlier will help us all adjust quicker. I can't argue with that but the downside is that we would likely be sleeping on the floor, eating off of disposable plates and all sat around a borrowed portable TV (cross-legged on the floor, I expect) for two months before we leave. This also means we will have much less time to explore the suburbs, schools, etc. and may make a hasty decision that we later regret.

There are lots of other variables but I won't bore you with them all here (like finding furnished accommodation that will allow our cat, once she leaves quarantine).

Are either of these plans flawed? Considering we would like to sort out a school place ASAP, do schools accept short-term rentals as satisfactory evidence of residing in their catchment area?

I'd be pleased to hear from anyone on how how they did it and whether they feel it worked or not?

[Paula H]

hi ya

Hope it works out for you

We exchanged on the 3rd Jan and wont be moving until Sept this year, mainly to save but also to research areas.

Good luck

[leeannekays]

Hi Dazzlin, we are in the process of selling our house. We are waitin for a completion date and have the shippers on standby to collect our things. As we are arriving in oz 24th April we have a fully furnished rental booked until 25th May to give us time to put the children in school and find a long term rental and get a feel for the places and work etc.. We have told the shipping company we want our things 25th may at the earliest. Our things will most properly have to go into storage first which the shipping company will arrange.

We are staying ith my parents once our house is completed until the date we fly.

Leeanne

[kildorragh]

Good morning!!

We moved here in January 2007 with our three kids. Managed to sell our house in the UK in December 2006 so moved in with friends for six weeks. We packed everything into the container and watch it sail to Oz six weeks ahead of us. The stay with friends was trying (more so for them I guess) but it went well considering there were nine of us packed into a 3-bedroomed semi.

When we flew out, we had a month in Adelaide before the container arrived. The dog followed us out a day after we left (again - friends helped us out) but obviously went to Melbourne first for quarantine.

The missus was adament that she did not want to rent so we stayed in holiday accomodation for the first month. Day One after arrival was getting over jet-lag; days Two, Three and Four were spent house hunting - millions of opens!! Found the perfect house in Happy Valley on day four and after tense negotiations, our offer was accepted with a three-week settlement date. Arranged a mortgage on day five.

Moved in to the house four weeks after arrival. Container arrived and was delivered two days after we moved in. The dog arrived the day after.

It all fell into place but was quite hectic.

Within a month after arriving, the kids were sleeping in their own beds, eating dinner off their own table, watching TV on our sofa and the dog laying at their feet. Bit of a Dr Who moment but with more sun.

It worked for us but we never came here to try it - we knew it was going to be forever so tried to make sure everything fell into place.

I was starting a job in March 2007 so had the time available to get the groundwork in place - it could not have been done if I was working soon after arriving.

Still in the same house - all happy as pigs in the proverbial...........

Good luck with the move.

[ebstar]

Hi, There's really no right or wrong way,just what suits your personal needs.One thing I would point out,is that quite often shipping times over run.Ours for instance arrived with us over 5 months after the shippers took it! Would you rather have limited items where you are now and are probably able to borrow a few basics from friends and family or have nothing in a new country and so a rush to grab basics on arrival? It sounds like you want to get your family settled as soon as possible and it definately feels more like home with your personal belongings around you. I don't know what age your children are but would think the sooner they are in a new home (rented or bought) the sooner they will settle.It is my understanding that you need to be in a long term residence for school purposes and not a holiday let. Most people book about 3/4 weeks in a holiday let,to give themselves time to have a good look around different areas. I would look for a rental property to start of with as you said you don't want to feel like you've been rushed into making a purchase.It just means your not tied to that specific area if you find it's not for you as you settle.
We have been here 6months and love the area and the schools so much that we decided to buy and move into our home in a couple of weeks. For alot of people that is too soon but it was right for our family.
Good luck with the move. Deb

[Adelaide_bound]

Just to let you know - storage costs imho aren't that bad in Oz - admittedly we are only shipping 200 cubic foot (ish) but its only costing us £6/week for our stuff to go into storage when we arrive (we are off travelling the country for a year or so before we settling in SA).

My view for this end is I want stuff gone at least a couple of weeks before we leave, so that I can see what we have left to get rid of (other than what we are taking on the plane) in the final two weeks before we go - this is kinda helped in that we aren't shipping things like our bed, so most of the house is going to be pretty clear (hopefully!) at this stage, the shipping will go, then we will clear the last few bits of junk/car boot/furniture, apart from our bed (and possibly TV) and then we will book the council to come collect our bed and divan via their large furniture disposal service the morning we do a check out of our rental in the UK then get a taxi to the hotel near the airport (as we are staying there the night before due to an early flight).

If the council can't do the day we want, we will do that a couple of days before we are due to check out of rental house, and stay with my brother who lives a short train ride away for a couple of nights, leaving the house empty, then return for the check out, get the taxi down to the hotel as before.

Its pretty hard to co-ordinate in my brain at the moment, and we only have 32 or so days left, so I am going slightly mad at this point lol. Its a lot easier that we are just sticking it in storage the other end tbh - if I had to think about what happened when we got to Oz I'd have gone round the bend by now I think lol.

[Kingpin]

Hi

Our shippers arrived 3 days before our house sale completed so we had 2 nights on borrowed airbeds etc but still in our house. We spent one night with friends on the day of completion and flew the next day. We then had 2 weeks in Hong Kong visiting family before flying into Adelaide.

Everything was so last minute with us the only accommodation we could find had us sign up to 10 weeks. While the house is fine the high rent ($750 a week) has been a drain on our resources. We are also in an area completely unsuited to our lifestyle. It took us 2 weeks maximum to decide on an area we loved, find a school and somewhere long term to live. So for 8 weeks we have been "waiting" to move in and are eagerly waiting for our container to arrive which should happen soon hopefully. Really missing our things now....

[likesshopping]

Would you rather have limited items where you are now and are probably able to borrow a few basics from friends and family or have nothing in a new country and so a rush to grab basics on arrival?

Theres no right or wrong way and its all a bit of a head mess trying to think about which way you should do it. I have to agree with ebstar....think its better to borrow from family and friends Uk end.

Everything always seems to work out in the end no matter what you do - hope it all goes to plan





Sarahx

[jtct]

We all have different experiences and there is no right or wrong way to do it. We were lucky that we had family to stay with when we arrived so didn't have the added headache of trying to sort rentals. We also planned to buy asap as we had researched the market well, followed progress of properties and areas we liked on-line and visited Adelaide 5 times (for ave 6 weeks each trip) before. We started going to opens as soon as we arrived and after seeing about 40 homes we put in an offer just 2 weeks in - with 30 day settlement. Unusual, but we found the 'right house in the right place'. Have been happily settled here for nearly 2 months now and as we needed some new furniture and had to replace all our 'white goods' we were able to survive quite comfortably with a few basics - 2 single beds, fridge, TV etc. - until our shipment arrived. It was good having a bit of time to choose what we really liked for our new home and furnish slowly. (till waiting for the leather sofas for the lounge)

When we were over here in January/February we left most of the clothes behind in our daughter's shed so we would have a good seasonal selection available on our arrival.
We had our stuff shipped the day we exchanged contracts but as it was only a partial load we shared a container - that meant a slightly longer delivery time - 12 weeks in our case. We camped in our almost empty house for a few days until completion, used our son's house while he was on holiday then stayed with friends living out of a suitcase before flying out 2 weeks later. It was hectic and not ideal but it worked for us.

Good luck with whatever you decide - it all works out in the end and its bound to be a bit stressful.

DSC02046.jpgspa.jpgfamily 3.jpgkitchen.jpgdining.jpg

[Dazzlin]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the comments so far. It seems that my wife probably has it more right than me (typical - she'll be unbearable now!). I was expecting it to take several months to get a really good feel for which area is right for us and then locate the right property, but your comments suggest this can happen much quicker. However, we have quite a large area to explore. Unlike most, we would prefer to be on the edge of the hills for the views rather than nearer the beaches, but we don't want to be too far from the city. We are planning to have a good look along the hills from, say, Hope Valley down to Happy Valley (the southern end obviously being nearer the beaches but I am expecting my best job prospects will be north of the city).

Mind you - the exchange rate has been going south too the past few weeks. Much further and it might have to be a winnebago!

Three months and counting...