UrbanBound Employee Relocation Blog

Helping Your Healthcare Employees Relocate with Ease: A Guide to Finding the Right Housing

Written by Julie Kramer | Jul 25, 2024 2:29:25 PM

As an employer in the healthcare industry, you know that getting top talent isn't just about offering a great salary and benefits package. When your new hire is moving with their family, finding the right home is a big deal.

By offering real estate support and hyper local guidance in their housing search, you can make the transition easier and more appealing. Here’s how you can help your employees find a home that fits their family’s needs.

Finding the Right Fit: 4 Essential Factors

Every family has different housing priorities, but some factors are pretty universal for healthcare professionals relocating with families. Here’s how you can guide your employees through this important decision:  

1. The Local Housing Markets

U.S. housing markets vary w-i-d-e-l-y. For example, in Decatur, Illinois, the median home value is $92,200; in San Jose, California, it’s $1,475,000 (that’s 16x higher!).

That’s why it’s critical to encourage your employees to understand the home values of where they’re coming from and where they’re headed. This will help set realistic expectations and assist in prioritizing their housing needs.

2. School Quality

For many parents, the search for housing starts by identifying the top schools. Encourage your employees to start by focusing on measurable factors like test scores, reputation, class size, budget, academic and extracurricular offerings—then add specific qualities that matter to them.

 3. Community Character  

Help your employees land in a community where their family feels comfortable, safe and welcome. Suggest they research local amenities (i.e., recreation, entertainment, dining), the locals’ age and demographics, churches, community events, crime statistics—and again, whatever matters to them.

This stands true on the neighborhood level, too. Are there other families with kids the same age? Parks? Block parties? What’s the overall vibe?

4. Proximity/Location

Work-life balance is crucial for healthcare professionals, so it is essential for your employees to think about their tolerance for commuting when choosing a home location. Encourage them to factor distance and commuting time into their decision-making—not just to work, but to schools, shopping and activities, too.

Scoping the Scene: 5 Key Resources

Now, where do your employees find all that important data, especially when starting the quest remotely? Well, we’ve helped relocate more than 10,000 healthcare professionals, and here’s our top resource picks. 

1. Neighborhood Scout

Neighborhood Scout offers the most comprehensive database of hyper-local real-estate data available. Its detailed neighborhood profiles cover housing, schools, demographics, crime rates and more, sparing your employee hours of random web searching.

Good news! As an UrbanBound client, your employees will have full access to Neighborhood Scout via the UrbanBound platform.