Interstate Move *TO* Lincoln...Tips, Tricks, Suggestions?

VectorVictor

VectorVictor

Donor
So it looks like it's finally happening--I'm planning to move my family to Lincoln. w00t!!!

However, I have decidedly more stuff and people and animals and vehicles and...etc... to consider than when I moved down with all my belongings in the back of my vehicle. A couple of decades will do that to ya. So, has anyone done an interstate move? Anything they would do over again if they could? Anything to avoid? People to use?

Current thoughts/ideas we have:

  • I figure valuables (e.g. guns, electronics, gaming systems) and pets we'd move ourselves. 
  • We would sell our existing living room and master bedroom furniture (it's old) and buy new when we get to Lincoln (here we come Schafer's...)
  • We're already starting to purge and will have the mother of all garage sales later this spring...
  • We have a Lincoln realtor we were working with last year...but then my work status was thrown into flux. That's settled now, so we're back on the hunt...but maybe we're too early looking for a home



Thing is, I'm also not sure if the move will pan out, and our home value in DFW is growing by major leaps and bounds...so I'd hate to sell it. Maybe refinance (to lower mortgage) and rent it out (and hire a property mgmt. company?) so we can hold on to it...and just take a loan out against equity for the new home?

All sorts of questions, and I'm not sure where to go or what the right answers are...so any help or guidance would be appreciated. 

 
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Nothing like an interstate move to make you realize how much stuff you have that you don't need. We had a "sell it all today" garage sale when we moved to California. Super cheap prices on everything. We'd only lived in that house for two years, and had only been married for eight years, when we did that, and still had a whole garage of stuff to sell. What little didn't sell we just put on the curb and it was gone in a couple of days. 

 
If you're not going to bother with big furniture and such, one thing I found out is that you can actually ship boxes on Greyhound busses for extremely cheap! As long as it's in a box and can be lifted by someone/slide into their bus storage bays, they'll ship it and usually have options to pay a little more to come straight to your doorstep on the front or back or both ends of the trip. Saved myself hundreds of dollars moving everything that didn't fit in my car from Chicago to ATL years back.

 
Plan to rent a dumpster the day after the garage sale and throw out as much stuff as is practical.

Make sure you plan the move to allow time for whatever you'd like to do to the house while it's empty. Painting, replacing floors or carpet, drywall repair, etc. are all MUCH easier before you move in.

Since you already know Lincoln pretty well this might not matter, but renting a place and putting stuff in storage is a good way to get to know the area and give yourself time to sell your current house before you buy (the timing can sometimes be difficult).

 
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RedDenver said:
Since you already know Lincoln pretty well this might not matter, but renting a place and putting stuff in storage is a good way to get to know the area and give yourself time to sell your current house before you buy (the timing can sometimes be difficult).
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Thanks for the tips. 

Re: selling the current home, if we did that, we would have no trouble selling it within a week--literally. There are homes next to us that were on the market for one day, got ~20 offers, and were signing paperwork a week or so after. 

Our neighborhood is a very desirable one, and the cost per Sq. Ft. has more than doubled since we bought it. Home prices in Texas are quickly going up--it's why I'm toying with just renting the house out. The longer we sit on it, the more equity and more value we get. :)  

Plus if the move doesn't work out for the family...there's somewhere to fall back to. 

 
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VectorVictor said:
Re: selling the current home, if we did that, we would have no trouble selling it within a week--literally. There are homes next to us that were on the market for one day, got ~20 offers, and were signing paperwork a week or so after. 
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This is Lincoln's housing market, too. 

 
VectorVictor said:
Yup, that's how I understand it. It's going to be a challenge finding a home to move into this summer, I fear. We were going to build one...but the prices went through the roof after last February's storm. 
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Double edged sword. Your existing home value may be going through the roof but so are replacement values in many locations.

 
JJ Husker said:
Double edged sword. Your existing home value may be going through the roof but so are replacement values in many locations.
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Yup. The cool thing is homes in Lincoln have basements...and homes in DFW generally don't, and the real estate figures don't include basement square footage, so more home for the $$ in Lincoln. 

 
Here's a tip:

Make sure it's warm and your gauges work

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Another tip:

Always do the mess around OTR  :)



 
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