Relocation, a process often intertwined with exciting career opportunities or transitions, comes with its set of challenges. At the heart of a successful move lies the question: how does relocation assistance work?

While California REALTORS® often highlight the numerous benefits of owning a home, from the perks of equity building to the joy of personalizing one’s space, the process of relocating is seldom straightforward. There are many compelling reasons to use a real estate agent, especially when considering relocation. These professionals, particularly those who specialize in relocation, understand the intricate dance of listing homes, assisting with housing needs, area tours, and the full spectrum of relocation services. 

In this comprehensive guide, our full-service Relocation Department at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties aims to unravel this process, ensuring every transition is as smooth as possible.

Employee relocation: A corporate necessity

Every year, numerous employees undergo job relocation, making the role of corporate relocation services pivotal. The process can be as simple as assisting an employee to transition to a new city, or as complex as coordinating with entire human resource departments to facilitate mass employee transfers.

What comprises a typical corporate relocation package?

In the corporate world, a relocation policy is about more than just relocating employees and covering moving costs. It’s a comprehensive suite of relocation benefits, often encompassing:

• Relocation expense reimbursements: Covering moving company fees, travel expenses, and other ancillary costs.
• Temporary housing provisions: This relocation benefit offers a haven until employees find their permanent residence.
• Relocation allowance: A financial assistance given to cushion the immediate effects of the move.
• Closing cost reimbursements: Helping in the transition from one property to another.
• Moving coordination: Organizing the various important logistics of a move, from coordinating movers, to setting up utilities, to supporting with the transfer of vehicles or pets.   

While these are the core components, there are varying nuances to every employee relocation package, depending on company policy and individual agreements.

What can our Relocation Department do for you?

At the core of our services lies a commitment: to make every relocation as smooth as possible. Whether you’re wondering how to find a relocation REALTOR®, grappling with the intricacies of a job relocation package, or simply looking for advice on moving to a new location, our team has got you covered. So, what can our relocation department do for you?

Quite a lot, whether you are:

• An employee being transferred to a new location.
• A company that is transferring employees to a new assignment.
• A real estate agent helping a transferring employee sell an existing home and buy another in the destination location.

“First and foremost, our relocation team helps pave the way for a smooth transition for all parties involved in the real estate process,” said Gabriel Brown, our Vice President, Relocation. 

Because relocation can affect so many clients and their families, we spoke to Gabriel about how the department functions, and what to expect if they ever need its services.

Making big moves

“Let’s say a company is going to hire another 500 employees at a new site,” said Gabriel who, like the members of his team, is a Certified Relocation Specialist. “That company will hire a relocation management company, such as our own HomeServices Relocation. That company then tasks us with all of their employees’ real estate relocation services such as listing the home, selling the home, rental tours, and area tours. Traditionally, that’s how this whole umbrella works. A company has a need for employees to transfer, the relocation management company contacts us, and we work with them to ensure their housing needs are properly met.”

How Does Relocation Assistance Work? All About Our Full-Service Relocation Department It offers benefits for transferees, companies, and agents alike Share on X

A top priority here

Relocation services are a top priority at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties.

“It takes specialized experience and training to become an employee relocation professional”, said Gabriel. Agents must close 10 to 12 transactions a year on their own to get started in relocation, he said.

“We must have seasoned, well-trained agents involved. The high scrutiny placed on transferring employees (transferees) is taken very seriously by their employer and by the relocation company as well. The first six years of my career, I was building my business, and then finally was able to get into the Relocation Department and work with these transferees.”

To become Certified Relocation Specialists, Gabriel and his team attended a series of webinars and passed certification tests from consultants Brookfield Global Relocation Services (BGRS) as well as the Employee Relocation Council (ERC), a governing body that sets the rules and regulations that Specialists must follow.

What else do relocation management companies do?

“There are about 100 relocation-management companies across the United States,” Gabriel said. “Their job is to provide relocation services far beyond just the real estate side: household goods, settling-in services, plus moving, storing, and shipping transferees’ belongings. In addition, there may be a need to assist them to get their driver’s license or Social Security cards–whatever the case may be.

“Our piece of the process is helping the employee with the home finding, area knowledge, home purchase, and/or rentals. We also will help them sell their home if it’s in Southern California. So if they’re moving out of state, that’s what usually happens.”

How relocation services benefit each party

We asked Gabriel to elaborate a bit on how the relocation process works, and how it benefits each participant.

For the transferee:

Per their employer, the relocating employee gets in touch with the relocation management company, who refers them to a real estate firm like us, Gabriel said. The employee then calls either Gabriel or one of his counselors.

“We work with the transferee, figure out what their housing needs are, then assign them to the right agent. Once the agent is assigned, that agent schedules an appointment to show properties, whether it’s rentals or purchase. If it’s a listing, we do a full market analysis for the transferee and provide all the information to them prior to getting a listing signed. Once we are awarded the listing, we execute a specialized marketing plan designed specifically for that property.”

For the transferring company:

“Transferring companies are the majority of our business. The No. 1 reason is that we can handle every facet of their real estate needs because we have Certified Relocation Specialists who are trained, go through a stringent vetting process, and are experienced to handle all of these types of needs.

“We cover a large geographical area in Southern California and have hundreds of agents under our umbrella. Our team includes three relocation counselors who handle San Diego, one handles Orange County, and two handle Los Angeles County. We also have an outgoing-referral specialist, who performs a lot of the work on behalf of our agents.

“The bottom line is, we handle all of the real estate needs and that’s what the transferring companies need to know. Between me, my counselors, and all of our agents, there’s not one thing on the real estate side of their relocation that we can’t handle. We cover all of Southern California up through the Central Coast, as well as Fresno and Riverside County, including the desert communities.”

For our real estate agents:

“Our agents should know we have a dedicated counselor for outgoing referrals. So for any agent who has a client that’s going somewhere else, whether it’s in San Diego, Southern California, or across the country, we have that resource for them. Our digital outgoing referral form sends the data directly to the dedicated counselor, who starts working the referral on the agent’s behalf.”

“The benefit to the agent is that they get their full compensation with very little extra work. That’s what our counselors are here for, to take the whole responsibility of tracking and following up on the referral.”

Interested in learning more about relocation? Visit our Relocation Services page for more information.