The most daunting thing about moving to the country has to do with money, you have questions like:

Do we have enough saved to buy the type of property we want?

Can I find a job?

Can I survive until I/we get jobs?

Consider renting to get established.

In this post I talk mostly about getting finance and buying a property but with buying a new property there is a couple of inherent risks that might make the wheels fall off your plans.

The first and most dangerous risk is that you can’t find a job where you want to live.

The second risk is that you don’t like where you live.

If you buy a house and either of these risks come into play you’re in quite a bit of trouble, especially if you can’t find a job, as that could mean financial ruin.

So the option to mitigate these risks is to consider renting and then look to transition to buying that property of your dreams.

Rent is usually far cheaper in the bush and that means that it will still allow you to continue saving for a deposit.

By renting you can secure employment first before anything else so you negate the most dangerous risk to moving to the country. Once you’re settled in your new job and past your probation you can go and start on the property hunt!

If you don’t end up liking where you moved to you’re not stuck with selling a property and you can just up and leave at the end of your lease or you can take the hit of losing your bond and just up and leave.

It may delay getting that dream home a bit but it is certainly the safer bet.

Getting that deposit.

If you don’t already own a house you’re going to need a rather large deposit. That deposit has to compromise of at least 5% of the value of the property PLUS the entire stamp duty and if you don’t have a 20% deposit you also have to have Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI). So it is a sizeable chunk of cash you need to have to be able to even get a loan.

This is the same for anywhere in the country however.

So in NSW on a $500,000 property you will need at least $55,000 saved up for deposit and other charges. The depressing thing is most of that money goes towards stamp duty and LMI.

Securing Finance

After you have your deposit saved it’s time to secure finance.

We thought we were doing the smart thing and getting pre-approved for a home loan so when we found our property we could save some time in securing it. Unfortunately the bank we went with wouldn’t give us the loan because the postcode wasn’t in one of their “lending areas” which meant we had to look elsewhere.

It is worth talking to a mortgage broker about all of the above which is exactly what we did and we were very happy that we did as it saved us much time and cost us nothing for the service.

Employment

Finding employment is probably the hardest part of the move, especially if you’re in a white collar job. Employment in the country tends to be limited. In the city there might be 400 positions available but in the country there might just be 1 or 2 jobs. So you must keep this in mind before picking an area to move to.

If you work in aged care, health or education you should be able to find jobs in these sectors pretty easily as most country towns are crying out for people to fill these roles.

Another thing to consider is doing some study to get qualified for the types of positions available where you want to live. It would be the perfect time for a career change if that is what you were after. Getting training in aged care, health or education would give you a lot of options when moving.

Moving to the country is a risk

With any big life changing decision there are risks involved and moving to the country is no exception. The key is to be prepared and manage the risks. Jumping into something like buying a property in a new area is risky. There’s no sugar coating that fact but if you’re smart and have a plan A and plan B you can make it work.

The best piece of advice I can give here is to have a plan from how you get to where you are now to where you want to be add in some contingency plans in case things don’t go 100% right including a financial buffer and you will be on your way to living your dream.

I’ll leave you with a quote by Greg Reid:

“A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true.”

Got a question? Feel free to ask in the comments section or on Facebook Or Instagram.

Don’t forget to read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series for your complete guide to moving to the country!