Things to do BEFORE moving to South Carolina

Moving to a new state can be an exciting and adventurous experience. If South Carolina is your destination, there are a few things you should do before making the move. Ideally, planning these a few months prior to moving will make a big difference in how easy your transition is here.

1. Join a local facebook group to learn about the area. I am very partial to “Moving to Lexington, SC’ and “Moving to Chapin, SC” *wink wink* This will help you learn about the area and narrow down where you would like to live. It also gives you an opportunity to ask about neighborhoods and find out any potential surprises that may be waiting for you in your move! It will also give you prospective from people of all different walks of life. Everyone has their own opinions.
2. Get those DOCTORS Appointments Now: If you need specialty doctors, it is best to go ahead and get that request in now. It can take a few months to get an appointment with a specialty doctor in SC. If you will need one as soon as you move here, it is best to work on finding a good doctor for you and work on going ahead and scheduling that appointment. Across the country, we are seeing wait times for new patients go up and if you can get ahead of it before you actually need it, it will be incredibly beneficial to you and your family. An odd one that you may not consider being difficult to get an appointment with as a new patient is a dentist. That is your bonus tip of the blog.
3.   Daycares: Nothing is worse than moving to a new area and having all new expenses but not being able to work because you do not have childcare. Daycares in SC like across the country, have waitlists. These can be months long. Get on that list as soon as possible so you are able to move into your new job as quickly as possible to help make that transition as smooth as possible! Joining a local facebook group also allows you to get insight on different daycares and how parents feel about them. If it is possible to take a trip to the area and tour it, even better!
4. Get that JOB lined up: If you need a job in SC, find that job as soon as possible. The south is a slower pace of living and the employers can take that to heart. It can take you a few months to find a job and if you are looking to purchase, you will need to have that offer letter in hand to do so unless you have another source of income. This also is the same for job transfers, they can take time. It is better to go ahead and line it up now than wait and miss all of your hard deadlines.
5. Narrow down where you want to live: Finding this out really helps your search if you are moving out of state. It is very difficult to have a broad search area because then you are needing to research the area for every single home that you are interested in. Finding that out now, makes it so much easier for you because you can change a lot of things about a home but location generally isn’t one of them.
6. BONUS that is not in the video but I should have added it because it is extremely important: If you have a house to sell, put it on the market BEFORE you start your home search. Sale and Closing contingencies make getting your offer accepted very difficult and as markets balance, homes will take longer to sell. In the Lexington/Columbia area of SC, the seller can still market and take offers on a home that is contingent on a sale and closing. You may find the perfect home and be unable to purchase because the seller was able to find a buyer that did not have that contingency so it is very important that you put your home for sale as soon as possible.

In the video above, I do go into more detail about each topic so I highly encourage you to watch the video for more information. I hope this was informative. If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to reach out!