You’re Moving Across the Country (or World)…How Do You Find Your New Home? Part Two
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At this point, I have narrowed my focus down to 1-2 towns. My goal now is to find areas within those towns where we’d like to live. I’m NOT trying to find THE house yet. I’m continuing to narrow the entire world of possibilities down to a handful.
1. With 3 children ranging in age from 9 to 16, the most important consideration for us is schools. I start at GreatSchools.net to get a feel for the schools. I use this as a first “sort” of schools. Test scores and rankings only give you a snapshot of a school, and not the entire picture, but that’s all I have access to from across the country or world. So recognizing the limitations of this strategy, I list all the schools for that town on a spreadsheet with their individual GreatSchools.net ranking {here}. I refer to this spreadsheet in the next step when we’re considering specific houses. Depending on the area, my husband and I pick an arbitrary cut-off ranking, usually around an overall school score of “7” on the GreatSchools.net website. This cut-off number simply reduces the number of schools being considered to a more manageable number. There are situations where you may want to consider schools with a ranking lower than the cut-off score you chose. Use the chosen cut-off score you choose to help you, not to blindly limit your choices.
2. I evaluate commute times for that town or area to locations that will be important to us. I do a gps search to figure out the average commute times to jobs, schools, medical care, activities, airport, and shopping. I add this information to my Preparing for a Move Town Comparison worksheet {here}.
Other Posts in this series include: You’re Moving Across the Country (or World)…How Do You Find Your New Home? Part One and You’re Moving Across the Country (or World)…How Do You Find Your New Home? Part Three
I’m a mom of 3, a veteran and military spouse. I’ve moved into 20+ homes all around the world. My passion is helping busy people make the space and time for what’s really important to them.