This year has certainly seen its challenges in relocation. Within Houston Relocation, one of the trends that has been most prevalent has been with regards to transferees who need to lease upon their initial move to Houston. The reason for this is quite simple. Due to the housing markets being more depressed in other areas of the country, transferees have oftentimes found it to be more difficult to sell their current home before making the move to Houston. For many transferees, the only logical solution is to lease a property in Houston, while awaiting the sale of their current home. This can pose its own set of challenges.
For instance, many transferees are reticent to sign a one-year lease on a single family home or townhouse because they don’t want to be locked in for a long period of time in case their current home sells sooner than expected. In fact, many transferees would prefer to lease a property for only 3-6 months, if possible. While most landlords prefer a one-year or longer lease term, a shorter lease term is not out of the question; it is just harder to come by. In these cases, it is often necessary for the assigned agent to make many phone calls in order to find properties that might have been on the market for a while (both for sale and/or lease), in which the owners/landlords might consider a shorter lease option.
In other cases, transferees may only need a month or two or three in a temporary accommodation. This is usually easily arranged by assisting the transferees with a temporary corporate apartment. The issues that come into play usually have to do with whether or not the transferee is willing to go into an apartment. Not everyone is happy with this option.
It is our job in these situations to help transferees consider their options based on their own priorities. In other words, we need to ask them whether the most important thing is have a short-term lease, or is it more important for them to have a single family home. If it is the single family home that is most important to them, then the will have to consider the fact that it is probably going to be necessary to lease a property for at lease 6 months; however, if the most important thing is being able to have the flexibility of a month-to-month lease, than they are most likely going to have to lease a temporary corporate apartment.
There are also other factors that require us to help transferees to evaluate their priorities. Many times transferees have pets that are part of their relocation. Since not all landlords will accept pets, or will only consider pets on a case-by-case basis, this must also be factored into the mix. Schools are also a top consideration for many families. In these cases the top priority has to do with the school or schools that their children will be attending. As such, they may need to be flexible in terms of property type and term in order to accomplish this.
I think that it is also very important when working with transferees who are renting, whether through necessity or choice, that they are given the same high level of service that transferees who are purchasing receive. Not only that, but as demonstrated above, they may need even more time and attention. A couple of times over the past few months, we assisted families who were in this exact situation, and their only choice in relocating to Houston was to rent a home.
It is our job to assist transferees in defining their priorities, but also to explain the realities of each situation. If a transferee is looking for something that simply doesn’t exist, whether due to price range, area of town, geography of the land, etc., it is our job to manage their expectations. If we do a good job of this at the very onset, then transferees will be even more confident in working with us to assist them in their home purchase when the time comes.
