Life and the match?

I was wondering how you all figured out how to arrange a move, buy a house etc. if you moved for residency. Gregg and I are trying to figure out which choices we would really like (assuming of course that those places would like him too). Unfortunately, we can't figure out how we would sell our house and buy a new one on his meager residency income. This is all further complicated by the fact that I would conceivably be on maternity leave in April and May and would feel bad taking paid maternity leave and not ever coming back to work after that. If I quit right after the baby in April, I'm sure we would really be interesting to lenders if we tried to buy a house with no income in June. With three kids and two dogs, apartments are going to be hard to come by too I'm afraid. I really want to go back to Kansas City but financially I can't figure out how to make it work. Of course that means that our best option would be to try to match here. It's all so confusing! How did any of you who have gone through this do it? Any hints?

Tiffany

[mommax3]

Tiffany,

Take a deep breath and tell yourself that it will all work out, because it will. I wouldn't feel bad about taking the maternity leave and then quitting, but if you feel that bad about it, would it be feasible to go back for a couple of weeks in early June?

Lenders will look at your husband's potential income, so even if you don't have income in June, it shouldn't matter. You will have to give the lender some kind of statement from the residency program where your husband matches that tells what his salary will be. The fact that you already own a house will help, too.

When we were moving from Indianapolis to San Antonio, here is what we did:

In late December, when we found out where we matched, (military match is earlier than civilian) we right away planned to fly down there in January to get the lay of the land. My husband had the month of January off to go on interviews, thinking he wouldn't have to do a military residency, so he had time to make the trip. We put our house up for sale in March and made another trip to San Antonio at that point to actually look for a house. We found one and made an offer on it contingent on the sale of our house in Indiana. The offer was accepted and home we went.
Our house in Indiana ended up selling in three weeks, and we were able to close on it in before we moved, and close on the San Antonio house by overnight mail. It worked out great -- but was very stressful at the time.

When you put your house up for sale, make sure the possession date that you specify fits your time frame, and go from there. You probably won't want to list it until after the match, but you can start doing little things that need to be done between now and then, just in case.

Keep us posted.

Sally

[DCJenn]

Tiffany-

We're dealing with the same thing but only on the fellowship side of things-we find out in December if he's been accepted. Nevertheless, the house goes on the market at the first of the year- we know that we won't be staying here we just don't know where we are going.

My husband is in the military as well, so although we have put in our selections based on where we would like to go, there are no guarantees! So, I'm looking online at houses in the three areas we said we would like to go but also holding in the back of my mind that if he doesn't get the fellowship- we could be going literally anywhere in the world.

When we moved here, I owned (and still own) a condo in DC, which we now rent. We won't be able to ever fit in it again, but it's a nice steady source of income. We debated hanging on to this house as chances are we will be here again, but decided that we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. So, house is being painted and then the For Sale sign goes up. We live in a pretty marketable area so I'm not too worried. I will leave my job whenever I need to- my boss knows that absolute last day possible will be 6/30 but it could be much, much earlier.

The anticipation is making me nuts!

Jenn

[Michele]

How does the match work? I know my FH is only a first year med student, but I'm trying to figure out how I could do a residency, or if I should just give up on the idea because we couldn't be together... Does it matter what he wants to specialize in? Once he's been accepted does that mean he'll be in that same place until he's "done?" I tried asking him these questions but he doesn't know! So if anyone has time and feels like explaining it to me, I'd appreciate it!

Michele

[houseelf]

Michele,

The "match" is a national program for placement of medical students into residency programs. Fourth year medical students interview at potential residency programs and then both the program and students rank each other in preferential order. These lists are sent to a national data base and then a computer sorts out who goes where. It is kind of like sorority rush , if you are familiar with that procedure. After all of this, on an afternoon in mid march, the 4th year medical students receive envelopes at 12 noon telling them where they will live for the next 3,4, 5, 6, or in our case, 7 years. Graduation takes place in June and generally, the recent graduates are living in a new city by July, the start of the medical year. Many people are fortunate and receive their first choice. Some specialties, like neurosurgery, match earlier in the year.

To be honest, I haven't the foggiest idea on how the military match works, but perhaps someone who has gone through this could explain it. However, at this early point in the game, I wouldn't give it too much thought other than to discuss potential specialties. (My unsolicited advice, for whatever it is worth, try to steer your honey away from surgery. Of course, I do not pretend to be unbiased on this one.)

Tiffany,

First, I agree with Sally, take a big, deep breath. This statement isn't meant to minimize what you are going through, you are going through a lot. Your first priority is maintaining a healthy pregnancy and keeping your two toddlers healthy and happy. Everything else will work out.

By the way, you WILL qualify for a house. You may have to write a letter of intent about what kind of employment you will seek and how much money you anticipate earning. If you sell your house and move into an apartment, you may be liable for capital gains taxes. You will probably be better off buying. Besides, at least with home ownership, you will at least break even or even increase your financial position. Rent is a complete hemorrage of money and leaves nothing to show for it. I've heard that unless you plan to live in a place for less than three years, homebuying is almost always the better financial option. In my humble opinion (for whatever it is worth), it would behoove you to bit the bullet and transfer equity into a new home.

Also there are several creative financing packages available for financing a home. My friends just purchased their second home and have a program in which they pay less the first four years than they pay for the remainder of the mortgage obligation. I don't know how it works, but I would research various options.

By the way, I also would research the various state licensing procedures. It took me 6 months to acquire my license here even though I already had a license back home. Try the BARBRI web site and see which states offer reciprocity and which places require sitting for a new bar. Armed with this information, I would STRONGLY urge hubby to take this into consideration.

Have I helped at all or am I just contributing to that head-spinning feeling? My intentions were to help, but I know that this is a lot. Just remember, it will all work out. Really.

Kelly

[DCJenn]

FYi for those who care or those who really, really care....

The military match is similar to the civilian match, with the exception that your choices are more limited. There are the occasional few who are able to get a civilian residency or a civilian fellowship but those are few and far between.

The match works like this- during 4th year, they go to the various medical centers to interview. (for us we had a whopping 4 choices- Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, Madigan Army Medical Center in Seattle, Walter Reed Army Medical Center in DC, and Brooke Army Medical Center here in San Antonio) Now, this is when it gets interesting (and why my husband thinks the entire match is conducted my shrouded men drinking bourbon throwing darts at the applications... he selected in this order: Hawaii, Seattle, San Antonio, DC. We're here in SA. So, the lesson is just because you pick something, you may end up anywhere- which goes across the board for the military for your entire career anyway, so I suppose the message is "get used to it"! Because he was a military medical school graduate, he and his co-horts were placed first, then the HPSP (those who attend civilian medical schools) students.

I really think it's the men in the dark room though...

Jenn

Having just done the whole match and moving thing this last summer, I can FEEL your ANXIETY! It really is a stressful time and if you can do it ... try not to worry too much. Believe it or not, it does work out. Though, I must admit I wondered how it would all work for us.

My experience .... We didn't find out until March 21st on Match Day where we were going. We didn't know if we were going to move right away because my husband had ranked some anesthesia programs with the internship year being in Arizona (where we already were). We did get the house ready to sell in case. We put new carpet, repainted etc. etc.

When we matched to San Antonio we raced trying to get our house up for sale. The mistake we made was not having everything ready. It took us another 3 weeks to get all the little repairs done before we could put the house up. That hurt because we only had two months to sell the house. We flew out to San Antonio Mother's day weekend to find a house. We were here for five days. Our financial lender was great. We had absolutely no problem getting a loan based solely on Russ' meager residency salary. You can definitely get a loan and having a home already will help greatly. We didn't buy our new home based on selling our old one because we knew no matter what we had to be here and we wanted a house to move into right away. We were fortunate to have family to help us with the down payment and then we paid them back as soon as we sold our house. We bought our new house on June 26th and closed on our other house in Arizona on July 21st. It really did work out fine but the stress was incredible! We didn't get the offer on our Arizona house until the night before we left for San Antonio.

The only things I would have changed in how we did things were: RELAX. I was a basket case most of the time when there really was no need to be. The second thing was having the house ready. I wish I had gone through my stuff earlier to unclutter. I had a problem with the reality that we were actually moving I guess. I kept thinking I would have time later to get things done. I wish I had done more all along in the 4th year instead of waiting until we matched. (i.e. going through the kids room and getting rid of stuff). Oh the other mistake we made ... we tried to sell our house ourselves in the beginning. That is a lot of stress and some people can do it. I couldn't. We had people showing up at our door at all hours unannounced and you had to have your house spotless constantly. With 4 boys, that was a job in itself. There was a lot less stress when we got a realtor.

It will all work out. I would definitely look to buy a home if possible. When we sold our home in Arizona, we paid everyone that helped us back and our down payment was covered.

Anyway... I don't know if any of this helped but ... at least you know it can be done!

Robin

[SueC]

I can't give any input about dealing with the move/buying a house part since my husband matched in the same city we already lived in, but thought I'd chime in about maternity leave. I wouldn't feel bad at all about taking maternity leave and then quitting--women do it all the time! Even if you went on maternity leave with the intention of going back, you could never predict how you would feel after having the baby about whether or not you would want to return to work. I was a little worried about that too, but I finally decided I had earned my maternity leave (where I worked it was basically whatever we accrued in sicktime) and so I took it even though I had no plans whatsoever to return to work. My boss and co-workers weren't at all upset when I told them I had a change of heart and didn't want to come back to work.

By the way, are you from Kansas City? That is where we live--we love it here!

Thanks all for the reassuring information. It is nice to know that loan companies will consider my husband's meager income and will look at both of our future income possibilties. I suppose I shouldn't stress but I think the reality that this school thing is really coming to an end and Gregg will be making some (if you can call it that) money and we can really plan a future is finally hitting me.

Thanks for the barbri site, Kelly. I have been trying to find out where that information is listed and never thought to go to barbri. I'm licensed in KS, MO and IA and have vowed to NEVER take another bar exam. So, the reciprocity stuff is essential information.

Sue, I am from KC...born and raised. We moved to Iowa for med school and I really miss the city. Friends of mine that would come visit from other states were always surprised at how much was really going on there. I used to love going to the Plaza and Westport art fairs each fall. There is so much to do with kids and without. Things are a bit more limited here. We travel there about once a month or so to see my family so I get to keep somewhat in touch with things. Where is your spouse doing residency? With so many med schools feeding into the city, it makes me concerned that getting a slot might be difficult.

Michele, I don't know too terribly much about the match process except that it is enough to put me over the edge, but I think I recall something about whether you are doing a spouse match. I think programs look at that some way but I don't know any other information. Sorry.

Thanks again everyone. I'll keep you updated.

Tiffany

[PrincessFiona]

Re: The Match

Fortunately, we went oustide of the match so we didn't have to deal with the uncertainty...

but this would be a great opportunity to put together the new FAQ on the match....

Can you guys come up with some common questions that you had/have and then the answers? We can post them later in the new FAQ...

Kris

We put down right around $500 to buy our $138,000 townhouse in Sacramento... we went through a lender that deals with residents... no school loans were looked at... it was great! (if you want that info... I can pass it along to you- not sure if it's only for California or what) We did an 80/20 loan which means we have no PMI to pay... very nice!

Some banks have "resident loans" as well... talk to your financial aid person... they should have alot of info!

We found out in March that we were moving from Florida to California... flew out to Sacramento for one VERY stressful weekend... bought a place in 3 days... did all the paperwork from across the country...

We rented a truck... packed up... drove for about 48 hours with 3 cats & a dog...

So... it can be done! It's a very exciting time! I loved every minute of it... even the not knowing part... crazy, I know! I was very involved in the whole match process with my partner... I helped pick out the cities that I would or would not want to live in. I figured that if I was going to spend at least 3 yrs (Peds is a 3 yr. residency program... different specialites have different lengths) then I might as well be interested in the city!! I even tried to go on most interviews... it was a fun time!

For info on the Match.... Frieda online ( http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/2997.html ) has all your answers. Also check out http://www.scutwork.com . If you want to know exactly how the Match works: http://www.scutwork.com/cgi-bin/links/p ... orithm&d=1

Wow... what a random-and-full posting this became!! 8O

Hope that all helps!!!
Carey

[Michele]

Tiffany, now that I know more about the match (thank you everyone! ) I think it could be exciting. Stressful of course (at least I think most change is stressful), but maybe you guys could narrow the choices together. I would feel bad about the maternity leave thing too, but then would have to remind myself that I put X years into this company and am getting a deserved compensation. Also wouldn't you be moving later than May? So maybe you could offer to do a nice training program for the new person when you get back? Or before you leave for maternity leave? I don't know though, I don't have a job.

Sorry I'm not much help. I think you can do it though! We'll be here for you.

Michele

Carey, you said that you didn't pay PMI... what about everyone else? My wife and I will be matching in March 2003. Most likely we will be moving. I've read and heard about the whole 20% thing... but I really wonder how much of a difference it will make with my wife's "potential income". The other things that stinks is that we probably won't want to be too far from the hospital, and, as I am sure you all know, houses near hospitals tend to not be in the nicest of neighborhoods! BTW, we are renting now, and will be looking to buy our first house/condo after she matches. Thanks for any help.

did somebody say Kansas City?

I just thought I would ask you about Kansas City since you mentioned it in your post. We are IN Kansas City, awaiting the result of all things MATCH related. We are hoping to stay here, too, although DH is looking in St. Louis as well...we also own a home, and its good to read the posts saying that lenders will look at future earnings...I am pretty freaked out by what the future may hold. What specialty is your soon to be doc looking into? Mine is sitting squarely on the fence between PATHOLOGY and Med/Peds! He is doing a few more rotations in each between now and January, but he is really not sure what he wants to be when he grows up! I know he will be great at whatever he decides, but do you know of anyone else who couldn't decide? It seems like all of his classmates know just what they want to do. Hope to hear back from you, let me know how its going!
Gina in KC

We went with the 80/20 loan which means that we paid a little higher interest on one of the loans, but we avoided PMI. We also got the seller to pay half the closing costs and then rolled our half over into the loan. You have so many options... just make sure you have a good real estate agent... and a lender that works with physicians/residents. I'll look up the name of the guy we used.... they work a lot with new residents and they understand how crappy a resident's salary is. They didn't look at my partner's current school loans 8O in the whole debt to income ratio.

Do a web search for physician loans and relocating... there are tons of sources out there!

Carey