Get Paid to Move to These Places- And Help Your Favorite Nonprofit

Relocation Incentives

Relocation incentives are offered to induce many different choices by individuals and companies. This post is about “relocation” incentives when moving from one place to another. To be specific, these incentives are available only when moving to certain locations, not just anywhere in the country.

But this post is also about an unusual way to do good, when your move from one place to another involves the sale and/or the purchase of real estate – a home, land, or a building for either your family or your company. That move can be within the same city or across the country. And I do mean anywhere in the country.

Wow, how great to be paid to move to different U.S. states, cities, and towns! Some of the places have familiar names, like Topeka, KS, while others might not, like Manilla, IA or Cottonwood Falls, KS.

Various programs are sponsored by various organizations offering various monetary inducements to move to their respective towns.

Though the motivation behind these incentive programs speak to a genuine need to improve certain aspects of life in the municipalities where they are being offered, the incentive programs are plainly a good thing for individuals and families who are looking for a new home.

Some of these programs are intended to fill job openings, which clearly aids in workforce development, others are more directly tied to the social sector, while others seem intended simply to boost the local population.

Relocation Incentive Program Examples

North Platte, Nebraska will give $5,000 to match an employer bonus paid to new hires at some jobs that pay at least $20/hr.

Moving to Hamilton, Ohio can net you $5,000 to reduce your student debt of $10,000 or more if you graduated in the last seven years with a degree in a STEAM field.

In Detroit a “fellowship” program, begun in 2008 by Challenge Detroit, provides a year’s guaranteed salary and additional follow-on support to out-of-state college graduates who move there.

Osborne, KS offers to provide both residential and commercial lots, for free.

Moving Incentive Conditions

Yes, certain conditions do apply. The new job might have to pay more than a specified amount or you might have to make a three year residency commitment. Your company might need to have at least three full time employees and a business plan. There might be a refundable filing fee.

Other programs require you to move within six months and also have a full time remote job. One program requires you to get a job in your new town within 120 days of getting a $15,000 incentive.

One program offers up to $15,000 of student debt forgiveness, others waive five years of state income taxes! Those are among the incentives available in 77 Kansas counties that participate in the Rural Opportunity Zone program.

One of these programs offers more incentive if you will buy a home in your new town, than if you will rent one, which communicates an underlying motive for that incentive program, Choose Topeka.

A program being offered by Claremont, MN, called the Claremont House Lot Program, offers free lots on a first-come, first-served, basis to both small families of only one or two people, and to larger families of three or more, whose gross income is not higher than $88,600 or $101,890, respectively.

Alaska has been incentivizing people to move there at least since 1980! Their program is called the Permanent Fund Dividend and it pays an annual sum to permanent residents. The amount for 2020 is $992.

Obviously, not all towns, cities, counties, and states provide such incentives. The largest cities seem unmotivated to provide such incentives.

Nationwide Incentive With a Twist

Now, I want to introduce to you another incentive that is available in every state, county, city, and town, as well as in unincorporated areas of the U.S. and it can be used by people who buy and/or sell a property, as part of their relocation. But in the case of this particular incentive, the move can be within the same town or city. And, I want to repeat that it’s available in every town or city in the U.S.

It’s called Investing In Communities® (IIC) and it exists to solve two problems: helping consumers find agents that are actually best suited to handle their desired upcoming real estate transaction, and at the same time, providing critical funding for charities & schools chosen by the consumers, but at no cost to the consumers!

The problem of insufficient funding for virtually every charity and most schools exists in every community.

At the same time, consumers who are planning an upcoming transaction – for example a home purchase or sale – often have no idea which agents would be best for them to choose among. IIC also helps consumers to solve that problem, by identifying multiple agents who specialize in the type of transaction that each consumer is planning. But these agents also specialize in the price range of the home and the neighborhoods in which each consumer is interested.

IIC works by referring to each consumer multiple agents that have been identified as a good match for the specific transaction the consumer wants to have, based only on the agents’ professional experience and specialization – not based on their generosity. IIC can also refer a consumer to an agent they already know.

Rather than relying on agent generosity, IIC simply charges agents a market referral fee, then gives most of that to the buyer or seller’s selected charity or school. IIC works because of the competitive nature of the realty brokerage profession.

A common referral fee for residential agents, nationwide, is 25% of the commission. The typical IIC distribution equals $1,350 if the home price is $300,000.

So, while you consider benefitting from a relocation-incentive program, please also consider allowing a charity or school that you care about to benefit, at no cost to yourself. For that matter, please consider using IIC to benefit your favorite charity or school when you buy or sell real estate anywhere in the US, using any agent of your choice, even if you are not relocating to a different community.

Come to IIC to begin planning your project, to make your home-buying or selling the best it can be for you and your cause!

Organizations serving the communities mentioned in this post, include:

Claremont, MN

Claremont Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry

TLC Family Resource Center

Cottonwood Falls, KS

Symphony in the Flint Hills, Inc

Crosswinds Counseling

Hamilton, Ohio

The Caring Closet

Salvation Army

Manilla, IA