Some of you may have noticed that my URL has changed. My blog site where I’ve placed many posts about every aspect of telecommuting and working from home that you can think of used to be at http://nicolebachelor.com. And my main site where you could sign up for my mailing list, purchase my book, etc are at http://avoidgoingtowork.com. Well I’m doing some consolidating and have moved my entire blog over to avoidgoingtowork.com. Now I have everything on one site.

Don’t worry, I’ve updated all my links so any emails you get from me will always point you to the right place. And if you forget and accidentally go to my old site, it will redirect you.

So I’m still around, still pumping out great information about telecommuting for you. And I have lots of plans for additional improvements to my site in the future. You just have to get used to a new URL for now. Change is good - embrace it!

If you already read Parts I and II of my “Home-buying for the Telecommuter” series, you’ve learned already about 2 factors that the average telecommuter must consider when house-hunting that non-telecommuters may not need to concern themselves with.

Read on now to learn about the final factor that is probably the last thing you’d expect me to tell telecommuters to be concerned about!

Location:

Every home buyer (or home seeker) has heard the real estate mantra “Location, location, location!” Getting a home in just the right location can be one of the biggest challenges when buying your house. In Part I of this series I mentioned, however, that the exclusive telecommuter may not be concerned about location – sometimes living hundreds of miles away from his or her company office. And even for people who still have to go in once in a while, a long commute once or twice a week is a whole different consideration than a long commute every day. Obviously if you only telecommute occasionally then you still need to live driving-distance from work. But chances are, the more often you telecommute, the easier it will be to tolerate a long distance to the company office.

However, no matter what your current telecommuting status, one thing you must remember is that the only constants in life, as they say, are death and taxes. I’ve never heard telecommuting added to that list.

• Even if you work for a company that is very pro-telecommuting, you never know when the rules might change for you. I’ve seen even very large companies that are known for excellent telecommuting policies suddenly switch gears and call all their telecommuters back into the office. I’ve seen policies so strict that people who were unwilling to move could no longer keep their jobs. All it takes is a new CEO, or new head of your organization, and suddenly the rules are all different.

• Don’t forget the risks from down-sizing. Suddenly your whole group is cut and you’re job-hunting. But the jobs you apply for may not be as interested in hiring someone who lives in the middle of nowhere and can’t come into the company office on a regular basis. Do you have a large financial cushion to take the extra time to find a job that permits full-time telecommuting? Or do you have a family depending on you as sole bread-winner, and you can’t afford to be out of work for more than a couple months?

Unless you are certain that you’d rather take the time and make the sacrifices to find a new telecommuting job than go back into a company office again, or you don’t expect to stay in this house you’re buying for very long, don’t get too cocky about how flexible your home location can be. You may want to hedge your bets and make sure you live close enough to your company (or other companies in your industry) that you can drive in (perhaps nearly daily) if you absolutely had to!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting, telecommute, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom

If you already read Part I of my “Home-Buying for the Telecommuter” series, you understand that telecommuting offers some additional flexibility for telecommuters choosing a new home. The challenge of finding a home in just the right location may become easier to deal with if you don’t have to worry about the length of your commute. However, you also learned that there are some new factors for telecommuters to consider that are less of a concern for the non-telecommuter.

In Part I we talked about the first factor – space. Now we talk about the next factor:

Network Access:

If you plan to do a lot of your work over the internet, perhaps connected to your company’s internal intranet via a VPN (Virtual Private Network), it is critically important that you have a fast network in your house. Working on an ongoing basis, regularly communicating by email and Instant Messenger, sharing and exchanging large spreadsheets or other documents, simply isn’t feasible using a simple phone-based dialup connection. You need something fast.

While there are a few good options out there for most people, not everything is available to everyone. For instance, your standard DSL connection is simply not available at all houses – even in an affluent area full of technological conveniences. Availability depends on how close you are to the nearest cell tower. You may not be able to get DSL at all. Or you may only be close enough to get the basic connection which is slower than the much faster “professional” connection.

There are other options like a cable modem, which is also a good choice (it’s what I use today). However, you still need to make sure your new house has capabilities for this.

So when you start looking, explain to your realtor the importance of this factor. And if you see a house you really like, enlist your realtor’s aid in finding out in detail which internet access options are available.

Be sure to read for Part III of this article to learn about the final, and rather surprising, home-buying factor for telecommuters to consider!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting, telecommute, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom