Relocating to Frisco or Plano, on somebody else’s timetable
The four clocks
A relocation goes wrong in a way an ordinary move does not, because there is no slack anywhere in it. These four schedules all have to land in the same week, and each one is owned by a different organisation that does not know about the other three.
Your start date
The one date that does not move. Everything else is planned backwards from it, which is the opposite of how an ordinary purchase runs.
The closing
A financed Texas purchase runs roughly thirty to forty-five days from contract to funding, with an option period that expires on a clock that does not forgive a weekend.
School enrollment
Cannot start until a district accepts proof of residence, which is why it begins in the same week as the inspection rather than after the closing.
The moving van
Interstate carriers quote a delivery window, not a delivery date. The gap between the start date and the van is the reason temporary housing exists.
The thirty-day plan
Thirty days is not a sales promise, it is the shape of the constraint. A start date typically lands four to six weeks after the offer is signed, and a financed purchase runs about thirty to forty-five days from contract to funding. Those windows overlap almost exactly. Each phase below says what you do and what Mali does, because not knowing who owns which task is the most common complaint in a relocation.
- 1Days 1-3
Read your own package before you sign anything
Almost everything that costs a relocating employee money is a rule inside their own benefits document, found after it was already broken.
- Get the relocation policy in writing from HR, not verbally. Ask specifically whether a relocation management company administers it.
- Ask whether the package requires you to use an agent from a referral network. If it does, that referral has to happen before you sign a representation agreement with anyone.
- Confirm what is covered: house-hunting trip, temporary housing, storage, closing costs, loss on sale, tax gross-up.
- Start a lender conversation with someone licensed in Texas. An out-of-state pre-approval is not the same document.
What Mali does: Mali reads the package with you and tells you which parts change the house search. If a relocation management company is involved, she is referred in through it rather than around it, so nothing you are owed is forfeited.
- 2Days 4-7
Narrow to two or three areas from wherever you are now
A discovery trip spent deciding which suburb to like is a discovery trip wasted. The narrowing is done remotely, on evidence, before anyone books a flight.
- Name the work address, not the city. Frisco to Legacy West and Frisco to downtown Dallas are different decisions.
- Run the neighborhood matcher against that address for routed drive times rather than map distance.
- Check the exact attendance zone for any address you like using the district's own boundary lookup. A listing's stated school is not a guarantee.
- Ask about PID, MUD, and HOA obligations in the newer developments. They sit on top of the tax bill and change the monthly number.
What Mali does: Mali sends a shortlist with the commute, the district, the assessments, and the trade-offs written out, plus video walk-throughs of anything worth your time. The list is short on purpose.
- 3Days 8-12
The discovery trip
Two or three days on the ground, structured so that the drive between homes is itself part of the data.
- Tour in commute order, and drive at least one route at the hour you would actually drive it.
- See eight to twelve homes, not thirty. Past a dozen they stop being distinguishable.
- Walk the neighbourhood you are seriously considering on foot, in the evening.
- If temporary housing is part of the plan, look at one in person while you are here.
What Mali does: Mali plans the route, drives it with you, and books the showings around the flights. Where the employer covers a house-hunting trip, she puts the itinerary in the format the expense process wants.
- 4Days 13-17
Offer, option period, and the two deadlines that do not behave alike
Texas gives a buyer a paid, negotiated right to walk away. It is the strongest thing in the contract and it expires on a clock that does not forgive a weekend.
- Deliver the earnest money and the option fee inside the contract's window. Under TREC 20-19 paragraph 5A(2) those delivery deadlines, including the option fee, roll forward if they land on a weekend or a legal holiday.
- Understand that the end of the option period itself does not roll. Paragraph 5B expires at 5:00pm on its day whatever day that is.
- Book the inspection for the front of the option period, not the back of it.
- Budget the first year's taxes on the unexempted value. The seller's homestead exemption does not transfer to you, and a payment quoted off their tax bill is the most common relocation payment shock there is.
What Mali does: Mali writes the offer, tracks every date off the effective date rather than off memory, and tells you in plain language what each deadline waives if it passes in silence.
- 5Days 18-24
Inspection, appraisal, movers, and school enrollment at once
This is the week the four clocks collide, and the only week where a day lost cannot be made up later.
- Book the interstate mover now if you have not. Peak season runs roughly late May through August and the good crews are spoken for.
- Start school enrollment. Districts want proof of residence, and a signed contract or lease is usually what satisfies it.
- Schedule utility transfers for the day of funding, not the day of the move.
- Send the appraisal and any repair negotiation back through your lender promptly. A relocation closing has no float.
What Mali does: Mali coordinates the inspector, the option-period negotiation, the title company and the lender, and keeps a single dated list that you, HR, and the relocation coordinator can all read.
- 6Days 25-30
Close, land, and the Texas paperwork nobody warns you about
Funding is not the finish line. Texas has its own arrival checklist with its own deadlines, and two of them start the day you move.
- Final walk-through the day before or the morning of closing, after the sellers have moved out.
- Fund and record. In Texas you generally get keys at funding, not at signing.
- File the homestead exemption with the county appraisal district. It is free, you can file for the year you bought, and no third party needs to be paid to do it.
- Handle the driver license, the vehicle registration, and the voter registration on the arrival timetable below.
What Mali does: Mali is at the walk-through and the closing, and hands over a written first-90-days list: the exemption filing, the utilities, the county offices, and the trades she would call herself.
Your relocation package, before anything else
Almost everything that costs a relocating employee money is a rule inside their own benefits document, found after it was already broken. Read yours before you sign a representation agreement with any agent, including Mali.
Lump sum
A single payment, often taxable, and the details are left to you.
What it means for you: Maximum freedom and maximum exposure. Every cost you did not think of comes out of the same envelope.
Watch for: Whether it is grossed up for tax. A lump sum quoted gross and paid net is a real cut to your moving budget, and it is worth asking HR before you plan around the number.
Direct reimbursement or a managed budget
The employer pays or reimburses named categories: the house-hunting trip, temporary housing, the van, sometimes closing costs.
What it means for you: Predictable, but only inside the categories. Anything outside them is yours, and receipts matter.
Watch for: Category ceilings and time limits. Temporary housing benefits in particular often expire on a fixed number of days rather than on the closing date.
Buyer value option or guaranteed buyout
A program that takes your departure home off your hands, either after you find your own buyer or at an appraised price.
What it means for you: You are not carrying two mortgages, which changes what you can responsibly offer here.
Watch for: The order of operations. These programs have strict rules about accepting an offer on the departure home before the program takes assignment, and breaking that order can convert a tax-advantaged transaction into a taxable one.
Administered by a relocation management company
A third-party firm runs the whole move on the employer's behalf, including agent selection.
What it means for you: A coordinator, a portal, and a process. It works well when you enter through it.
Watch for: This is the one that costs people money. Many programs require the agent to be assigned through the network, and signing with an agent first can forfeit benefits you were entitled to. Ask before you sign anything. Mali can be referred in through the network, which is the version that keeps your benefit intact.
Where you sleep between the start date and the closing
Nearly every relocation has a gap. It is normal rather than a sign anything has gone wrong, and it is much cheaper when it is planned for rather than discovered.
| Option | Best for | Typical term | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate or serviced apartment | Families with a thirty day or longer gap and a household to store | 30 days and up | Furnished, utilities bundled, and usually the category a relocation package names directly. Book early in summer. |
| Extended-stay hotel | A short, uncertain gap, or a start date that moved | Nightly to weekly | The most flexible and the easiest to expense, and the least comfortable past a few weeks. Kitchen suites are worth the difference. |
| Furnished short-term rental | Staying inside the area you are buying in, with pets or older children | 30 to 90 days | Check the city's short-term rental rules and the HOA's before you commit. They differ between North Texas cities and they do get enforced. |
| Temporary lease from the seller, or to the seller | A closing and a move-in date that are close but not the same | 90 days or less | TREC publishes both a buyer's and a seller's temporary residential lease, and both are written for terms of ninety days or less. Occupying a home you have not closed on without one is a genuinely bad idea. |
| A twelve-month lease first | Anyone relocating who is not certain the role or the city will stick | 12 months | Renting for a year and buying deliberately is a legitimate answer, and Mali will say so when it is the right one. It costs her the transaction this year and it is still the right advice for some people. |
School enrollment
The part of a relocation with the least slack in it, and the part where the answers have to come from the district rather than from an agent.
Verify the attendance zone at the address, not the listing
Zones are set by the district and they are redrawn, particularly in the fast-growing north Collin and Denton County districts. Every district publishes a boundary lookup. Run the exact address through it before you write an offer, and do it again if the offer takes weeks.
Gather what enrollment actually requires
Districts generally ask for proof of residence, the child's birth certificate, an immunization record meeting Texas requirements, the photo ID of the enrolling adult, and records or a withdrawal form from the previous school. Transcripts matter most for high school credit placement.
Know what is asked for and what is required
A district may ask for a Social Security number, but a child without one is still enrolled and is assigned a state-issued alternate ID. Enrollment is not conditional on immigration status.
Ask about credit transfer early if you have a high schooler
Course sequencing, class rank and graduation plan requirements differ across state lines, and the counselor conversation is the one worth having before you choose between two districts, not after.
Ask about transfers if you land outside the zone you wanted
Most districts run some form of intra-district or inter-district transfer, with a window and a capacity limit that vary by year and by campus. It is a real option and it is not a guarantee.
How Mali answers school questions
With published measures and the district’s own tools: Texas Education Agency accountability ratings, the district’s boundary lookup for your exact address, and routed drive times from the neighborhood matcher. She does not characterise who lives in a neighbourhood, and it is worth being wary of any agent who does.
Score cities against your work addressThe van, on a federal-rules timetable
Interstate household goods moves are federally regulated, which means the questions worth asking are specific ones with real answers.
- 4 to 6 weeks out
Book the interstate carrier
Longer in summer. Get at least three in-home or video surveys rather than phone quotes, and get them in writing.
- At quote
Check the USDOT number and the estimate type
Every interstate household goods carrier has a USDOT number you can look up on the federal motor carrier registry. Ask whether the estimate is binding, non-binding, or not-to-exceed. The three behave very differently on delivery day.
- At booking
Choose your valuation coverage deliberately
Released value protection is the free default and it pays sixty cents per pound per article, which on a television is close to nothing. Full value protection costs more and is what most people assume they already have.
- 2 weeks out
Plan around a delivery spread, not a delivery date
Interstate moves are quoted as a window. Pack a two-week survival box, keep documents and valuables with you, and make sure your temporary housing covers the far end of the spread.
- Delivery day
Check the inventory as it comes off the truck
Damage and loss claims are built on the inventory sheet and the exceptions you note at delivery. Noting them later is much harder.
The Texas arrival checklist
Funding is not the finish line. These have their own deadlines, and two of them start counting the day you move, which is exactly when nobody is reading anything.
Texas driver license
Within 90 days of moving
New residents have ninety days to get a Texas license. Appointments at Department of Public Safety offices in Collin and Denton County book out, so make one the week you arrive rather than the week it is due.
Vehicle registration
Within 30 days of moving
Register through the county tax assessor-collector. Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant are emissions counties, so confirm the current inspection requirement with the county office before you go rather than assuming it matches the state you left.
Homestead exemption
File once you own and occupy
Filed with the county appraisal district, free, and available for the year you bought. Ignore any letter offering to file it for you for a fee.
Insurance
Before closing
Texas homeowners policies are their own market, and hail is the reason. Ask specifically how roof claims are settled, replacement cost against actual cash value, and what the wind and hail deductible is as a percentage.
Voter registration and county services
Whenever you are ready
Registration runs through the county elections office, and the same trip usually covers library cards and the county services people forget exist.
Start your relocation plan
The more of this you can answer, the more useful the first call is. Everything here is optional except your details, when you need to be here, and where you are with financing. "Not sure yet" is a completely normal answer to the rest.
Relocation questions
Should I rent first or buy straight away?
It depends on how certain the role is, not on how certain you are about the house. If the job is a known quantity and the start date is firm, buying inside the first thirty days is normal and saves you a second move. If the role is new, the company is new to you, or the commute is untested, a twelve-month lease is a legitimate answer and Mali will tell you so.
My employer uses a relocation company. Can I still work with Mali?
Usually yes, and the order matters. Many programs require the agent to be assigned through their network, so the introduction has to happen through the program before you sign a representation agreement. Tell Mali at first contact that a relocation management company is involved and she will start from there rather than around it.
How much of this can happen before I get to Texas?
Most of it. The area shortlist, the commute analysis, the school boundary checks, the lender conversation and the video tours are all remote. The discovery trip exists to confirm a decision that is already mostly made, which is what makes two or three days enough.
Why is my monthly payment estimate higher than the seller's tax bill suggests?
Because their exemptions do not transfer with the house. A seller with a homestead exemption, and possibly an over-65 freeze, has a tax bill you will not inherit. Your first year is assessed without those, and a payment quoted off the current owner's bill is the single most common relocation surprise. Mali quotes the unexempted number on purpose.
What is a PID or a MUD, and why does it matter here?
Public improvement districts and municipal utility districts are how a lot of newer North Texas development gets financed. They add an assessment on top of the ordinary property tax, they are disclosed in the contract, and two otherwise comparable homes a mile apart can carry very different annual costs because of them. It is a question to ask before you fall in love with a floor plan.
How do you decide which schools to point me at?
By pointing you at the published measures and the district's own tools rather than at an opinion. Ratings come from the Texas Education Agency's accountability system, attendance boundaries come from the district's boundary lookup for your exact address, and the neighborhood matcher scores commute on routed drive times. Mali does not characterise who lives in a neighbourhood, and any agent who does is doing something you should not want done.