If an employee makes a personal decision not to relocate their family, most companies do not pay for any benefit for the time the employee is in temporary/permanent housing. However, there have been rare exceptions for high level employees.

Instances have arisen where clients will pay for 2 (or even more) years of temporary living for a high level executive who decides not to move his family from the departure location. The payment of this expense on an on-going basis for the duration of the assignment is ordinary income to the employee. In the case of high level executives, some companies have grossed-up this expense, which makes this a very expensive as well as, generous benefit.

If this situation were to present itself with a relocating employee, Paragon recommends that it be handled carefully and on an exception basis. For more information on handling these types of scenarios, please contact your dedicated Paragon Relocation account manager.

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Mint.com the free financial account aggregation service yesterday published a helpful infographic on their blog, mintlife, on whether it is better to rent or buy a new home.

This infographic helps make what could be a complicated calculation for relocating families a little bit easier to understand during their relocation. Paragon Relocation uses a reviewed and recommended independent network of Real Estate agents to help transferees make the process of buying or selling a home as seamless as possible. For the family that is moving, the more they know about their housing situation the less stressful the move will be.

To view the whole infographic please click here: Rent or Buy a Home

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The following message from the US Embassy in Tripoli, Libya relates to the current crisis in that country:

The Department of State warns U.S. citizens against travel to Libya and recommends that those U.S. citizens in Libya depart immediately, due to the potential for ongoing unrest. Violent clashes between protesters and security forces continue throughout Libya, including in Tripoli. Spontaneous demonstrations, violence, and looting are possible throughout the next several days. The Department of State has ordered all Embassy family members and non-emergency personnel to depart Libya.

The U.S. Government is in the process of chartering a flight from Tripoli for Friday, February 25th and will provide details in another warden message as soon as they are available. We do not anticipate scheduling another charter flight after the charter on Friday.

Travelers should be prepared to bring valid travel documents and any necessary medications. Each traveler may bring one suitcase and a small personal carry-on item.

U.S. citizens seeking evacuation should be prepared to wait several hours. Travelers are advised to bring food, water, diapers and other necessary toiletries with them to the airport.

U.S. citizens requesting evacuation on U.S. Government-chartered transport must sign paperwork promising to reimburse the U.S. Government for transportation costs at a later date. Exact transportation costs are not yet available, but will be comparable to a one-way commercial airfare of a comparable distance on the date of travel. U.S. citizens who travel on U.S. Government–chartered transport will be expected to make their own onward travel plans.

Immediate family members (spouses and children) who are not U.S. citizens must be documented for entry into the safe haven country and/or the United States, if that is your final destination. A U.S. citizen child may be escorted by one adult, preferably a parent, who has appropriate travel documents. If a family has more than one U.S. citizen child, the one-adult rule still applies. All U.S. citizen travelers and their spouses and children, are required to have valid travel documents. The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli will assist U.S. citizens with travel documents. U.S. citizens who do not hold a valid U.S. passport or visa and are interested in departing Libya via U.S. Government-chartered transportation should contact the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Embassy Tripoli by sending an email to LibyaEmergencyUSC@state.gov or by calling 1-202-501-4444.

For more information on the travel situation in the Middle East please visit the US State Department’s Travel Advisory website.

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For a limited time, Worldwide ERC® and Paragon Relocation are offering complimentary Asia-Pacific Summit registration to all corporate HR attendees responsible for the talent management and global mobility of their company’s employees. Meet us in Shanghai!

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Let us know if you plan on attending!

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As if convincing existing employees and coveted new hires to uproot themselves and their families and accept transfers was not challenging enough, current economic conditions are making these candidates increasingly gun-shy about accepting moves if it means selling a home in a down market.

On the flip side, the cost of workforce mobility continues to escalate, even as it becomes a more integral component of a successful corporate growth strategy. To avoid a failed move or assignment, employers must be confident that they will receive the best possible return on their mobility investment.

In response, a growing number of employers are bolstering their programs and recruitment efforts with pre-decision services. Pre-decision is a sort of “fact-finding” mission conducted before a move takes place, enabling the employer and employee to better assess the potential costs of each move (particularly the value of the employee’s departure home), ensure that the employee is a good fit for the new job and destination location, and make informed decisions.

Pre-decision services can help recruiters close qualified candidates more quickly, boosting acceptance rates, and can help employers overcome employee reluctance by providing critical information and counseling that demonstrates the company’s culture, alleviates concerns, and motivates employees for heightened productivity in their new roles. They also can save employers from wasting valuable time, money, and effort on candidates or transitioning employees who cannot afford to move.

While a pre-decision program is not a crystal ball, it does give the employer a better handle on the potential cost of a move and helping to identify situations that may prove too costly. It also can be useful in educating employees who may have made poor homebuying decisions in the past, so that these decisions do not haunt future moves.

What constitutes a well-rounded pre-decision program? Research indicates that regardless of the type of homesale assistance offered, a program that addresses the concerns of both employees and employers may include the following:

• Proactive counseling to assess any unique concerns and requirements. It may yield that it is simply not cost effective to transfer certain employees based on personal, familial, or financial needs in the new location.
• Mortgage pre-qualification for the destination home. Knowing in advance how much home an employee can afford is critical in targeting potential destination communities.
• Expert valuation of the departure home. If it is a home that is going to prove challenging to sell or is worth far less than what the employee owes, the employee will want to know about it.
• A comprehensive marketing plan that identifies target buyers and incentives most likely to result in a sale within the specified time period.

Pre-decision not only addresses one of the biggest obstacles to mobility today: the difference between what employees think their homes are worth and what their homes actually are worth; but it also enables the client and transferee to make a decision based on these differences. Specifically, a Broker Market Analysis (BMA) can be ordered to establish a baseline in determining an employee’s equity position in their home, revealing potential burdens such as the need for loss-on-sale support.

According to Worldwide ERC®, the value of the departure home is most often the greatest importance to a transferee. Enlightenment should come before the transferee is already in the process of a relocation. Since the sale of a home has a considerable financial impact on mobility decisions and budgets, obtaining an estimate of value can provide a credible benchmark for an employee to assess how their home may have been affected by the current economic downturn.

Pre-decision consulting can also help employers overcome employee reluctance and boost acceptance rates by alleviating employee worries, addressing their needs, and motivating them for heightened productivity in their new roles.

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The UK based news agency the Telegraph wrote an article about how moving abroad can a cause strain on relationships. This is something that people in the Corporate Relocation industry have known for years and have addressed with the use of spousal/partner transition assistance.

Here are some of the highlights from the article:

A study of over 100 expat couples living all over the world has indicated that living abroad can put as much pressure on a relationship as having a first child.

While the person with the job spends much of their time trying to get settled in their new workplace, [scientist Kim van Erp] said, the partner finds themselves left alone, either working in a job they dislike, or staying at home. In the latter case, they often find themselves picking up more of the chores and responsibilities which may previously have been shared, leading to a sense of injustice.

In addition to the situations listed above it is also common for the person not working to miss out on social interactions that often come naturally as part of the job. For some foreign nationals who travel with the person commissioned to take the international assignment it is nearly impossible to obtain a work permit in their new international location which makes this problem worse.

Paragon Relocation would advise the person who is not on an assignment to contact their spouse’s/partner’s HR department and or talk to their International Assignment Consultant about different opportunities to get plugged into the local culture and opportunities to connect with other expats in the area as well.

To read this article in its entirety please visit the Telegraph.

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The website Xpatulator.com which publishes Cost of Living information has published its January 2011 list of most expensive places to live.

Here are the results:

1. Tokyo, Japan
2. Caracas, Venezuela
3. Hong Kong, China
4. Geneva, Switzerland
5. Zurich, Switzerland
6. Osaka, Japan
7. Sao Paulo, Brazil
8. Oslo, Norway
9. Nagoya, Japan
10. Moscow, Russia

They also go in detail about how much things cost in Japan:

Tokyo is the costliest city in the world in which to live as at January 2011.

Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world in which to live, out of 300 global locations, surveyed as at January 2011. While Tokyo is average in terms of the cost of items such as education (ranked 144) and alcohol & tobacco (ranked 138), it is the most expensive place in the world for groceries, healthcare, and household accommodation costs. As the most expensive city in the world, Tokyo has an overall cost of living index of 158.4 (New York = 100). In comparison to the next 3 cities to host the FIFA Soccer World Cup (SWC) Tokyo is 38% more expensive than Rio de Janeiro (SWC 2014), 36% more expensive than Moscow (SWC 2018), and 65% more expensive than Doha (SWC 2022). That means that an expatriate earning USD$5,000 per month in Doha would need to earn USD$8,250 per month in Tokyo to enable them to have the same purchasing power, and therefore a similar standard of living as they had in Doha.

In many International Relocation polices, to calculate between differences in prices between home and host country Paragon Relocation utilizes best in class up-to-date Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) data to compensate employees for these price differences on International Assignments. Paragon specializes in International Relocation Program Design with policies that treat our client’s employees fairly and keeps overall program costs low even in the most expensive regions of the world.

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In a recent National Association of Realtors report they have reported that home sales in December rose over 12% over the previous month.

Here are the highlights:

Existing-home sales¹, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, rose 12.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.28 million in December from an upwardly revised 4.70 million in November, but remain 2.9 percent below the 5.44 million pace in December 2009.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said sales are on an uptrend. “December was a good finish to 2010, when sales fluctuate more than normal. The pattern over the past six months is clearly showing a recovery,” he said. “The December pace is near the volume we’re expecting for 2011, so the market is getting much closer to an adequate, sustainable level. The recovery will likely continue as job growth gains momentum and rising rents encourage more renters into ownership while exceptional affordability conditions remain.”

“Historically low mortgage interest rates, stable home prices, and pent-up demand are drawing home buyers into the market,” [NAR President Ron Phipps] said. “Recent home buyers have been successful with very low default rates, given the outstanding performance for loans originated in 2009 and 2010.”

These are encouraging signs for families who see selling their home as a road block to taking a relocation that would be a beneficial opportunity for them.

Paragon Relocation has a long history of being the industry leading expert at getting homes sold so families can move on to their new opportunities.

Paragon’s Best Practice Home Marketing program combines using the best local relocation recommended real estate agents available, innovative local and internet marketing techniques, and pricing the home competitively within the local market to sell in a reasonable amount of time.

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In a recent Mobility Magazine, they published this graph from their New Hire Survey in 2011.

From this chart we can see that 73% say finding available talent to hire does not fall in the “easy” category. This often requires companies to find and relocate the talent to where the job is currently located.

Paragon Relocation designs New Hire Relocation Policies for employees at every level in their career path, from entry level to organizational leaders so that employees can transition seamlessly into their new job in their new location without any bumps in the road.

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