If you’re moving to Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky and relocating from another state, there’s a lot you have to think about and a lot you have to do. Lets look at eight steps for moving to Cincinnati to simplify the process of finding, buying, and moving into your new home. My name is Eric Sztanyo from Keller Williams Realty and team Sztanyo.com where we’re are helping you find your home and strengthen your family. It’s super fun to work with a lot of you who are finding out about our city, who are contacting us and working with us. We’ve had people contact us from Utah and California and Arizona and Washington and Maine and Texas who are working with us. So I’m glad we are able to help you out. Relocating from another state, that’s challenging, right? There’s a lot to think about. There’s a lot of moving parts. And so what I kind of wanted to do is map out that process and simplify it for you. So you kind of have some hooks to hang onto in terms of moving your family from one state to another across the country. So let me kind of chart that path out for you so that you know what to expect. So without further ado, here are eight steps for moving to Cincinnati.
8 Steps for Moving to Cincinnati Or Northern Kentucky
Steps for Moving to Cincinnati number one is confirm the move. You need to make sure you’re moving here to the Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky area. And that could be for a few reason, right? Maybe you are moving here for a job. Maybe you have family here and you moving back to be closer to family. Maybe you’re just looking at a new start, a new city. You’ve maybe seen some interests about nice cities in the Midwest. Maybe you’re thinking about cost of living. If you haven’t watched our videos, you yet on cost of living in Cincinnati and pros and cons about living in Cincinnati. Be sure to check those out, but that’s step number one is confirm the move that you actually are gonna come here to Cincinnati Northern Kentucky area.
Steps for Moving to Cincinnati number two is what you’re doing right now, right? Is connect with a realtor. You wanna work with a local professional who knows what they’re doing. Who’s competent. And hopefully you actually kind of like this person because you’re gonna be working with them a lot. So you don’t wanna work with someone you don’t like, and you’re not gonna enjoy the experience. So you’re doing that right now. You’re researching online.
Maybe you’re watching YouTube videos. I definitely recommend you check out Google reviews or Zillow reviews or wherever you wanna check out reviews.
You wanna work with somebody who knows what they’re doing. Then contact that person and start forming a game plan. They’re gonna give you tips on what to do next, right? And you can start working out that timeframe and the steps you need to take in order to move to the new city. You’re also on that first phone call, probably gonna start discussing buying criteria of your new home. What neighborhoods do you wanna be in? Do schools matter to you? How far? Where is your work gonna be? And how far are you okay being from work? What about the house itself? How many bedrooms do you want? How many baths do you want? How much land do you want? Do you want new construction or a resale home? So you’re gonna talk about all these things with your realtor on that first conversation and start getting the ball rolling.
Steps for Moving to Cincinnati number three is gonna be connecting with a local lender in the new city you’re gonna live in. So if you’re moving to Cincinnati, you can certainly use a lender that you’ve used in the past. They don’t have to be local. We always like recommending local lenders because lending process can get complicated when it comes to closing. If there’s a hiccup in the appraisal or the closing docs or anything like that, there’s a lot of moving parts. It’s always nice to be able to kind of call up or knock on the door of someone who’s here locally. We recommend people that we’ve worked with many times before that are trusted, that we know are gonna get the job done.
Most realtors you’re gonna work with are gonna have 2, 3, 4 different lenders that they can recommend to you. And you can kind of choose from those options who you might wanna work with. So if you need to get pre-approved for a loan to buy a house in the new city, you’re gonna go through that process right now to get pre-approved or at least discuss your options. Maybe the timeframes more than three months out. So you might not want to get pre-approved just yet, but talk with the lenders. Same thing you’re doing through your realtor. You’re kind of getting the game plan in place.
Steps for Moving to Cincinnati number four. And this may not apply to everyone, but you need to prep your current home for sale. So if you’re moving, you’re gonna be packing up boxes. Anyway. It’s best to start getting the jumpstart on that. So don’t look at it like you have to do all this work to get your house prepped and listed. Look at it as you’re getting ready to move, but you need to start working with a local realtor where you live, and you also need to get a game plan of when you’re gonna list the property and a big reason why you want to do this is because it’s been a seller’s market for so many years now. The inventory continues to be tight. The buyer demand continues to be high. You need to understand when you’re moving to the new city, are you going to be putting in an offer it’s contingent on the sale of your previous home, or is it gonna be not contingent? And even if it is gonna be contingent, what that means essentially is in order to get your new loan and buy this new house, you have to sell your first house, the house you’re living in now.
And it does put you at a little bit of a disadvantage if you’re competing against other buyers for houses that just hit the market and are super competitive. So one thing we often recommend to clients who need to sell their first house before they can buy their second house is do potentially a 60 day close. So you’re getting your house where you live ready for sale. You’re gonna put it on the market. You’re gonna go under contract. And instead of doing a normal 30 day close, when you go under contract, you’re gonna do is 60 day close. That gives you about a 30 day window. When you can go to your new city and start shopping. And yes, even though you might need to put in an offer that is contingent on your previous home selling, you can say in that contingency, it’s already under contract or even better yet. It’s already through inspections.
That gives the seller of where you’re trying to buy piece of mind that everything’s gonna move through your financing is gonna come through. You’re gonna be able to close on their house on your house. So again, step four only applies if you need to sell your current home in order to buy a new home in Cincinnati. That’s why we tell you to talk to the lender ahead of time. If you’re renting right now, or if you’re a first time home buyer, or if you’re a cash buyer, step four doesn’t really apply, but wanted to put that in there.
Steps for Moving to Cincinnati number five applies to everyone. It just depends on the right timing for you. Plan your visit to the new city. So this is a fun one, but you wanna mark some dates in the calendar where you can go explore the new city as much as you’ve been able to research online and look at neighborhoods and talk to your realtor. Now you get to actually come and drive around and meet locals and get a feel for the neighborhoods as you explore the different areas around town. Some of the people I’ve been working with who are relocating here from another state, kind of coordinating this visit with potentially a job interview. So if you are relocating here for a job and you’ve got to do an in-person interview in town, this might be a great time to expand that a few extra days so that you can explore the city while you’re here doing that job interview. Now this visit may be simply preliminary to get a feel for the area, or you may wanna go shopping while you you’re in town. You might not want to come back and do it again. So if you feel really confident about that job offer. Let’s say you’re not coming for a job, but you’re moving for family and you’re just here for that visit. You may wanna go shopping now.
Steps for Moving to Cincinnati number six, which is go shopping and get under contract. So this is the fun part. Now you’re actually in town, you’ve been working with a realtor. You’ve kind of been getting homes coming to you through maybe MLS listings or other search criteria you’ve been doing. And you pick your top homes that you like, maybe your top 5, 6, 7, 8 homes, and you plan some visits. You go out and look at those homes. We did another video recently where you can’t always get a feel for what the home’s gonna be like until you get there. We strongly encourage that if you can visit the home itself, that’s far better. because you can get tricked real estate photographers are really good at what they do.
So you gotta get a feel and go see those homes. You should have your preapproval in hand at this point. And once you find the house that you love above all the others, you work with your realtor, you put in an offer, you negotiate and you get under contract. If you’ve decided to buy new construction instead of a resale home, this is a great time to go and explore that neighborhood. Get a feel for the lot itself. And you may be buying new construction from scratch. In which case you can choose all of your custom finishes that you want on the home or potentially you’re buying new construction that’s a market ready home that might be finishing it in the next one to three months. Again, it’s a great time to explore those neighborhoods and get a feel for it while you’re in town.
Steps for Moving to Cincinnati number seven is lean on your realtor. So the realtor’s job is certainly to help you find that home and get it under contract. Their job continues to take you from getting it under contract all the way to the closing table. So I’m in our team, we have a transaction coordinator. Her name is Jill. She is amazing. Her job is to make sure all the eyes are dotted. All the T’s are crossed and make sure she’s helping you with your earnest money and scheduling inspections and making sure the appraisal is set up and all the little details that need to happen working with your lender and the title company, to get you to the closing table. Now, because you’re probably from out of town in terms of the inspection, which we wanna do right away, right after you get under a contract is again, you’re gonna lean on your realtor for this.
You wanna have boots on the ground cause you may not be here for that inspection process itself. We have some inspectors that we love to work with who are very thorough, but also communicate really well. Cause what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna get a report. That’s like 60 pages long of everything that’s wrong with the house. You want to know what’s wrong with the house and you need to negotiate repairs with the seller on any material defects of the home. You’re gonna lean on your realtor to help guide you through this entire process. Making sure that the seller either is making these repairs or arranging some kind of cash settlement that you’re both happy with. So you’re gonna have a lot of communication during this process. But the transaction coordinator and your realtor is gonna help you get through all of those details and into the schedule of closing and making sure you know what’s going on and making sure you can get to the closing table and you may close locally, or you actually may be able to sign from your hometown. We can discuss that as we get into the details and what works best for you.
All right, let’s review here. The eight steps to kind of simplify this process. There’s confirming the move, connecting with a realtor, connecting with a local lender, prepping your home for sale, planning your visit, going shopping and getting under contractor and then leaning on your realtor all the way to closing.
Steps for moving to Cincinnati number eight is close and move in. So closing day is always exciting. This is where you’re signing the papers. This is where you’re bringing some money to the closing table to actually buy the house and day that you get the keys. Of course, there’s other details in terms of the logistics of the moving truck and when you’re moving in and if you’re hiring contractors to do any work or if you’re getting your utilities in place, all those details need to happen as well.
Let’s just keep it to eight steps to move on. You close, you move in. You start to get settled and you start to get to know your new city.
Help In Relocating And Finding Your Home In Cincinnati Or Northern Kentucky
So congrats. There you go. There’s the steps from relocating from one state to another, from one city to Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky. I hope this was helpful for you. I hope this simplifies the process a little bit for you. If this was helpful, please like it down below. Subscribe. Be sure to hit that notification bell for more great content about Cincinnati. And if you wanna join the team Sztanyo Clan Yo and work with us to help you with your move. Please email me directly at Eric,sztanyo@kw.com. Thank you guys so much. We’ll see you next time.