From Virginia to Chennai

[jsr]

Wanted to share our R2I Experience -

First I would like thank all in this forum for providing valuable info related to
R2I. WIthout this it would have been really difficult to plan & execute various
R2I related activites.

We lived in Virginia for 11 Yrs.

R2I Decision - We always wanted to R2I and the question was only "When".
Then the time came when my Kid turned 2 1/2 (in 2005)and was ready for preschool. We enrolled him into Kindercare. It is after that we gave a serious thought about R2I and decided to move back on time to enroll our kid into LKg in India (that will be year 2007 June).

Selling the House - We sold our house in May 2006 and rented an apartment
till R2I

Packing & Shipping - When we sold our house we sold most of the furniture etc etc We had only limited items to ship, Books, 40" LCD, Computer, Vessels,
DVD Player and other house hold goods. Came to around 300 Cubic Feet.
We bought the packing boxes & supplies from Public Storage.Packed all the Boxes ourself and shrink rapped them. We chose Air7Seas (their quote was
the cheapest) It Costed 1400 $ door - to -door + Customs.
I got the goods in 2mons. In good condition. no damages. Pretty happy with the customer service of Air7Seas. They handled the Customs clearance also. Customs Duty + other charges around 6000Rs.

Job - I contacted my Ex-Boss for whoe I worked 11 years ago and got an
offer with out any interview. Accepted the offer. After I landed in India
through my US client I got a voluntary offer from the client's software
offshore partner which was 3 laks more than the offer from my Ex-Boss.
I told my ex-boss and took the higher offer.

Booked 1-way tickets and landed in Chennai on May 29th. We intended to
rent an apartment but then changed our mind to give it a shot at our parents
house. We modified the 1st follor and customized it to ur taste + furnished &
A/C etc. Its been going good there for 3 mons no issues.

Car - Honda City auto transmission. I am driving it myself. First 3 days
were difficult but now I am very comfortable no isues whats so ever.

Work Hours so far - Not so bad as I thought. Office is good. People are OK.

Actually I can keep writing a lot more but for want of time & don't want to bore
you guys.

Please let me know if you need any information.

Thxs

[nand]

thx for posting. keep posting your experience. What made you decide to ship only essentials and not furniture. A full container is around 4K I am told. Did the replacement cost of furniture factor in?

[jsr]

nand
6mons before R2I my wife had to make a trip to india. During that trip
she surveyed chennai's various stores. Based on that we decided
not to take furniture, bedding, washing machine, microwave etc

thxs

[MeMyself]

Hi jsr,

First of all, congratulations!

How was the experience of selling your house in this area? All gory details will help :)

We are getting our house ready to list in the next few weeks, and I am really not looking forward to it - only because of the overall RE market and the recent turmoil in the lending markets

- Murthy

[RV2I]

Congratulations!

[jsr]

#4 Murthy
Selling the house was definitely a challenging task. The only tip I can give
you is, if possible move out of the house you are selling , prepare the
house and list it. You can rent an apartment and try it for 2 / 3 mons.
If your house is not sold by then and ofcourse paying mortgage & rent for a
longer period is not that easy, you can move back to the house.

During this period you can stuff your garage with your things.

This is what I did.

Good Luck.

[vishwaGhar]

Hearty congrats, JSR. Thanks for sharing your experiences and do follow up with more posts.

regards
vishwa

[b2blr]

Congrats, JSR, and please do keep posting as well. I live in N.Viriginia as well, so was curious to find out which suburb you were in.