I moved to New Jersey from Colorado on August, 2016. It was a job transfer within my company. I’ve been looking forward to this move to get closer to my family and relatives. For my job, I had to move three times in last five years, that includes a cross-country move, so I know from my experience how hectic and stressful it could get. The purpose of this article is to share my experience moving from Colorado to New Jersey to make your similar moving experience seamless and fun.
Why Moving ?
There might be multiple reasons that you’d want to move to New Jersey. Finding the reasons and do a cost benefit analysis. If it’s solely due to a better job in terms of salary, you need to compare the cost of living along with other factors. If it is getting close to your family, definitely, you cannot put a price on that. Following Tables compare some of the information that you should know before moving than find it after.
| Category | Colorado | New Jersey | Lowest | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| State Income Tax | 4.63% Flat | 5.525% on taxable income 40,001 – 75000 (single), 80,001 – 150,000 (married) | 0% | Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wyoming |
| Sales Tax | 2.9% | 7.0% | 0% | Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon |
| Property Tax (Effective Real-Estate Tax Rate) | 0.62% | 2.29% | 0.28% | Hawaii |
| Category | Colorado | New Jersey | Lowest | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Median Household Income | $55,387 | $69,825 | $36,919 | Mississippi |
| Unemployment | 3.8% | 5.3% | 2.9% | South Dakota |
| School System Rank | 23 | 2 | 1 | Massachusetts |
| Happiness Rank | 5 | 20 | 1 | Utah |
Moving Preparation
Now that you’ve all relevant data analyzed, found it worth moving, the next step would be to plan the move. This is the most critical step, if you do it right, could make your move lot less stressful than you ever thought.
Once my job transfer was finalized, I received a relocation package from my company. If relocation benefit is provided, first thing would be to go through the package as carefully as possible to get the most out of it. It is the single most important document in the planning phase. So, if relocation benefits are not explicitly mentioned, ask the employer to provide the detail. You’ll plan your move based on information such as whether relocation services are provided or not, what are the other benefits in addition to relocation services, performance of the relocation service provider etc.
Relocation Package
Here’s a brief summary of the relocation package that I received from my employer. It contains the information on who would be the relocation service provider, relocation package options, covered relocation expenses and eligibility criteria of certain benefits.
For homeowners, it explains the benefits such as home marketing assistance, steps to listing your property, listing/purchase agreements, tips for home sale, buyer value option program, home sale incentive, reimburse loss on sale, home inspection service, closing sale, receiving equity and equity funding. For renters and new home buyers, it describes benefits such as reimbursement of early lease cancellation fee, providing home finding assistance, temporary living arrangement up to certain time, certain covered expenses while in temporary living, paid return trips, covered expenses when buying new home, assistance of getting a mortgage. It also covers the movement of household goods, storage and moving automobiles. On top of that it provided me some cash to cover miscellaneous expenses (subject to tax). A consultant was assigned to manage the benefits and was my primary point of contact. After few days of receiving the package, I’ve had a phone call from the consultant explaining the benefits, how I get reimbursed, what they’ll pay directly, who will call me to plan my move etc.
Temporary Living
Under my relocation policy, corporate housing options were available for up to 60 days. This is a great benefit, I think, that allowed me to familiarize with the area I never been and find a place to live. Corporate housing team provided me with multiple options of fully furnished apartments. I chose the one closest to my work, has complementary parking space and housekeeping services. If you don’t have this benefit, I recommend you to find a fully furnished temporary stay for couple months by yourself. Because finding a decent place or buying a new house for long term living might not be that easy in New Jersey, especially areas close to New York.
Long Distance Mover
It was a move of almost across the country of 2000 mile distance. So in terms of moving households and car, I needed to find a reliable mover with good experience and knowledge of such handling. Fortunately, with the help of relocation consultant, I found the same mover that I used during my cross country move, two years back, from Canada. They’re reliable, thorough and timely in terms of pick up and delivering the households. First, they send one of their local managers to get an estimate of the material they need to move. They asked me a lot of questions, fill out forms and gave me a timeframe for pick up. They packed those with great care in their own boxes and send to a storage in New Jersey. A driver from the same company, came the same day to pick up my car. So, make sure you searched well, ask all relevant question of how they’ll handle your household or car and then chose the right mover for you.
Final Move
For the final move, I packed rest of my items in luggage and fly from Denver International Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport. I bought the airline tickets ahead of time so the cost wasn’t too high. Also, chose the airline with no luggage or schedule change fee. That gave me a leeway of last minute changes to the schedule, if necessary. I had a rental car for couple days until my car was delivered by the mover.
Car Insurance
For the car insurance, initially I was willing to carry on with the same provider in Colorado. The quote they provided was almost twice as high. They mentioned the increase is because of my location. I decided to check their claim. First, I compared auto insurance quotes online, providing all my information. Surprisingly, the quotes came even less than the one I was paying in Colorado. Finally, I chose the one with the least monthly payment with same coverage and highest customer satisfaction from reviews. So, make sure you compare car insurance quotes very well before choosing your insurance provider.
License & Registration
New Jersey law required you to transfer out-of-state license within 60 days of the move or before expiration of current license, whichever occurs first. Transferring title and registering vehicle, also, have to be within 60 days. But as the insurance provider wants me to give them New Jersey license within 30 days, I had to start this process sooner. Since I’ve a leased vehicle, first I called my dealer to obtain paperwork of legal permission (power of attorney) to transfer the title. The dealer increased my monthly payment to $15 to adjust the state tax and mail me the required documentation with instructions regrading transferring title and registration. After receiving the instructions, I send the dealer the MVC contact information to mail title information and additional paperwork directly to them. After couple days I’ve had a phone call from the MVC that they received all necessary paperwork from the dealer and I’m good to go for registration.
I went to MVC the day with late opening hours (till 7:30 pm) since I work till 5 pm. I brought all documents mentioned by the dealer along with the 6-point-ID. It is important to bring the right 6-point-ID that applies to you and can be easily identified using MVC website. In MVC, first thing was to report at the front desk and explain my situation. They gave me some forms to fill out and start with transferring my license. Once I received my New Jersey license, I completed the registration and obtained 2 license plates, to mount at the front and at the back of the car. As the car inspection closes at 4:30 pm, I had to do it another day to complete this process.
Finding A Place
Finding a decent place to rent or buying a home in New Jersey could become as difficult as it could get. I started looking for either renting an apartment or a buying a town home or a house. For apartments, price is easily $1700/month for a 2-bed 2-bath where you don’t even want to live for free. Most of them are old and the owner doesn’t want to fix because they got it sold or rented. Price is higher than you’d expect, especially close to NY, as there’re lots of everyday NY commuters. Also, the property tax might push the price higher. Most of apartments listed online that I checked have horrible reviews. Some better rental properties with reasonable price range is located in Middlesex and in Ocean County. After spending a lot of time searching online and seeing in person, finally, I settled in a decent 2-bed 2-bath rental apartment for $1750/month in Elizabeth (close to my work, to avoid New Jersey’s hectic highway traffic and overwhelming tolls) and decided to keep looking for buying a house.
Final Thoughts
Here’re final thoughts from my experience that you might keep in mind while deciding or planning such move. Compare the categories such as school system, property tax, housing price that you’re interested in before taking a big decision of moving to New Jersey. Before planning, carefully analyze the relocation package. If there’s none, I’d recommend talking to a relocation consultant, which might save you big in the long run. Find a temporary fully furnished place while looking for a permanent housing. If that’s not possible, have your search and make sure to take few trips to New Jersey before finalizing any housing related deal. Because online pictures and information could be very misleading, so you end up living a place you don’t want. For auto insurance, mortgage and related items, do the best online research you can before choosing one. Because, in New Jersey there’re tons of options to choose from, so take your time, find the best one for your needs. You can use tools like multi criteria decision making to compare your options against multiple criteria, as in following table.
Finally, wish you the best in your move.
| Options/Criteria | Price | Distance from Work | Neighbourhood | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elizabeth | 7 | 9 | 3 | 19 |
| Edison | 5 | 5 | 5 | 15 |
| Springfield | 3 | 7 | 7 | 17 |