Starting work in a new city 4 hours from where I live....how to go about doing that?

[dderidex]

Seriously - own a house here in Bend, my wife works here in Bend (but retail, so she can get a job, like, ANYWHERE on fairly short notice), BUT....

Well, the company I worked for is going under! And there are so few IT jobs in the area, I've been primarily looking at the Portland area (3 hr drive only on the BEST conditions). I've got a few decent leads that haven't yet yielded results, but...

Well...if I *do* get an offer...what then? I'm not really highly paid enough to be worth a company paying moving expenses, so how do you go about doing this? Can't BUY a place without selling this one first (no down payment) - do you rent? CAN you rent a place so short-term (less than a week or so notice that you're suddenly interested in renting, and then only renting for 2 or 3 months max, while the house sells)?

Uggg...confusing!

(Of course, I still don't have any offers after weeks of searching, so it MAY all be a moot point. Ummmm....any ATOT'ers know Portland area companies that are hiring? )

 

[T3C]

8 hours worth of driving to and from work a day????? NOT WORTH IT.......

 

[notfred]

Find a cheap hotel that rents by the week, and put the house up for sale.

 

[Mo0o]

Put house up for sale or rent out. Get temp aparment in new city.

 

[meltdown75]

I always thought there were short-term leases available for business types. Usually in condos? Maybe your employer could hook you up with a list. Just a suggestion. g/l

 

[Modeps]

telecommute

 

[FoBoT]

find a friend/relative that will let you sleep in their garage for a couple weeks

 

[rudder]

If you get the job, rent a bedroom. Commute there on monday and come home friday. I would put your house on the market now. It will suck, but short term hopefully.

 

[radioouman]

Commute!

 

[Mutilator]

This is what extended stay hotels/apartments are for. Look around for some in the area.

 

[dderidex]

Originally posted by: meltdown75
I always thought there were short-term leases available for business types. Usually in condos? Maybe your employer could hook you up with a list. Just a suggestion. g/l

Guess that's what I was wondering - if such things existed. I was under the impression that apartment leases were more long-term.

Originally posted by: FoBoT
find a friend/relative that will let you sleep in their garage for a couple weeks

No friends/relatives in that area! All family is still back in Ohio. Heck, we don't even really have any friends HERE, yet, only been here a year!

 

[Lobstar]

Originally posted by: notfred
Find a cheap motel that rents by the week, and put the house up for sale.

 

[SpazzyChicken]

No way in HELL are you going to drive from Bend to Portland for even a short period of time. You'll shoot yourself on the way home the first night.

Anyway.......what kind of skills do you have? Current position? What exactly are you looking for? I know of some openings in and around my area (Salem, though I now work in Hillsboro).

You can PM me if you are more comfortable.

 

[VTHodge]

Some apartment complexes keep "corporate apartments" (mine does) that are fully furnished and rent by the month. There are plenty of hotels that will give you weekly (or longer) rates that are fairly affordable.

Edit: Look what Google found:
http://portland-oregon-extended-stay.biz-stay.com/home.cfm

 

[Grunt03]

work from home.

 

[AdamSnow]

VPN

 

[dderidex]

Originally posted by: Mutilator
This is what extended stay hotels/apartments are for. Look around for some in the area.

Found a couple, but they are all around $40 a day. For 30 days, that's another $1200 - which is more than we pay on the house in a month! (Well, it's more than the mortgage, anyway)

Is that the norm? If so...this will be uncomfortable!

Originally posted by: Grunt03
work from home.

Not a good long-term plan!

Originally posted by: SpazzyChicken
No way in HELL are you going to drive from Bend to Portland for even a short period of time. You'll shoot yourself on the way home the first night.

Well, yeah, I didn't imply I was. We drive up to Portland fairly regularly (nice city), so I know how much of a headache that drive is. It's FAR. And the mountain passes, too....

Originally posted by: SpazzyChicken
Anyway.......what kind of skills do you have? Current position? What exactly are you looking for? I know of some openings in and around my area (Salem, though I now work in Hillsboro).

I have an associate's degree in Client-Server programming (Visual Studio stuff), although that has really only been used for troubleshooting bugs to submit to engineering at my current job. For the past 7 years, my day-to-day tasks have been mostly administrative and SQL server stuff. I know MS-SQL really, REALLY well. I'd say that's my strongest skill right now - database management, backup plans, creating SQL scripts and stored procedures for data collection and database maintenance, etc.

I also do a lot of work with Crystal Reports (having developed all the reports our customers currently use).

A lot of the position I have has mostly been administrative and support things - aiding customers in picking out hardware, installing Windows, SQL, and our software, setting up and configuration LANs and WANs for customers, working with carriers to get telephony T1s in place at customer sites, helping customers maintain their servers and databases, answering customer support issues, as noted above - troubleshooting our software and submitting engineering request, doing some basic development/customization in procedure scripts, etc.

Finally, I've done a lot of on-site work - providing several week-long client training sessions on our software, doing on-site installation and such, etc.

If any of that sounds remotely interesting for any positions you know of, I've got a full resume I can email.

 

[KoolAidKid]

Option 1: Make an offer on a house in Portland. Make it contingent on your selling your place in Bend.
Option 2: Sell your house in Bend. Delay closing or rent the house back from the buyers until you find a new house in Portland.
Option 3: Sell your house in Bend. Move into an apartment in Portland with a month-to-month lease. Move out when you find a new house.

 

[KK]

Take up flying, buy yourself a little cessna 152 for ~15k. Maybe buy 2, just incase one is in for maintenance.

 

[jamesave]

i thought bend invest heavily on internet infrastructure not long ago.

 

[dderidex]

Originally posted by: jamesave
i thought bend invest heavily on internet infrastructure not long ago.

Bend, OREGON?!

Good grief, no! They couldn't chase the IT industry away faster if they beat it with a stick!

Bend is all about tourism and real estate investment, through and through. The town managers aspire to create Bend into "the next Aspen", for all intents and purposes.

 

[Pantoot]

Originally posted by: dderidex

Found a couple, but they are all around $40 a day. For 30 days, that's another $1200 - which is more than we pay on the house in a month! (Well, it's more than the mortgage, anyway)

Is that the norm? If so...this will be uncomfortable!

Remember, you wouldn't need to stay there every night. At the most it would be monday-thurs, so around $120 a week.

After you get settled, maybe you can get on a 4 - 10 schedule or something, and cut that down even more.

 

[cy7878]

lease/buy a mini van. Sleep in the van. when I was in college, the school paper did an expose on students that lived out of their cars. Also get a gym membership so you can shower before work, that's important. Just drive home whenever you feel like it.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Short-term corporate housing is often available. As a plus, corporate housing places typically don't have crazy people having parties late into the night so you should have your peace.

ZV

 

[r6ashih]

Try to rent out your house if you can.. then move up there and buy a new house!