Financial Reflections

Recent census data shows what common sense and my own experience have shown — people are staying put.  I recently had to search for a job after my last contract was ended due to costs.  Well, two of the places I’d most like to live are Florida (think Tampa) or Charleston, South Carolina (Mount Pleasant, anyone?).  There were actually jobs out there for what I do, but a really strong offer came in from Charleston, which means we’d have to relocate.

I priced out my options with my spouse and we thought of everything we could do to sell the house and move out there.  We hunted the usual suspects, like ForeclosureStore.com and found great deals on houses out there.  We discussed how to get our house ready and that’s when it hit us:

It wasn’t just a matter of selling our house at a loss, I was a question if we could sell it at all.

I say that because we are surrounded by homes that have sat on the market for months or a year and just haven’t moved, including properties that have “Bank Owned” on them and are presumably at better deals that we would be willing to offer in the first place.

I also know one couple that wanted to move closer to the city.  After a year, new paint inside and out, endless cleaning and grooming of the property and very few lookers – they gave up.  One person I knew moved to Savannah and moved back to Atlanta in 6 months when his house didn’t sell.

Needless to say, I done what the Wall Street Journal says many Americans are doing – staying put.  In fact, the US Census numbers show that most people are only fleeing if they have to, in places like Michigan where the Big 3 auto makers are falling apart.

What’s your relocation situation?  Let me know in the comments below…