Nearly one in five relocating employees who turn down a job transfer cite one specific reason: they can’t get their current house sold or off their hands. According to the 59th Annual Corporate Relocation Survey from Atlas Van Lines, 21% of companies reported that concerns about selling or leaving a home at the point of origin were a top reason employees declined to relocate in the past year.
Housing, Not Distance, Is The Sticking Point
The survey, which gathered responses from 549 relocation decision-makers across more than 20 industries between mid-December and mid-January, found that housing concerns split into two distinct problems for relocating families. Twenty-eight percent of companies said employee worries about housing costs or mortgage rates at the new location factored into declined moves, while the 21% figure specifically involved the difficulty of selling or leaving behind the home a family already owned.
Real estate market conditions more broadly ranked as the third-largest external factor shaping relocation decisions overall, with 26% of companies saying market conditions affected how many employees they were able to move in the past year, trailing only economic uncertainty and local labor shortages.
Companies Are Adjusting Their Offers
Employers are responding by changing what relocation packages include. The survey found 52% of companies now offer cost-of-living adjustments, 38% have extended temporary housing benefits to give transferring employees more time to sell a home before committing to a new mortgage, and 28% now provide some form of mortgage rate assistance.
Jack Griffin, Chairman and CEO of Atlas World Group, said in the company’s own announcement of the findings that relocation remains a key component of workforce strategy in a hybrid and AI-powered world, and that it must be tailored to individuals’ unique needs. That framing lines up with the data: nearly six in ten companies surveyed reported an increase in declined relocation offers over the past year, even as most of them planned to expand relocation budgets in 2026.
What It Means For Families Weighing A Move
For a household deciding whether to accept a cross-country transfer, the survey’s findings suggest the hardest part of the decision may have little to do with the new city, the new commute, or even the new mortgage. It’s whether the old house can be sold in time, and on terms the family can live with, before the move actually needs to happen. With elevated mortgage rates keeping many current homeowners locked into older, lower-rate loans, that calculation has only gotten more complicated for anyone weighing a relocation this year.
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