How long you're here
A full posting
How longA defined term with a known end
A proper term with an end on it. Long enough that the whole household comes, short enough that the return is already visible on the horizon — which makes it the only move here with two halves to plan.
What the term decides
Everything comes, but not everything should. A defined term is long enough to justify a full household move and short enough that the things you are lukewarm about are worth leaving behind rather than carrying twice.
It is one job with two legs, not two jobs. The decisions you make on the way in determine what the way out costs, and almost nobody thinks about the return while they are packing for the arrival.
Schooling frames the calendar. Northwood families on a posting are usually working around school places, which means the useful dates are set by an academic year rather than by a lease, and the sensible windows are the long breaks.
The property at this end is often let rather than bought, which brings an inventory, a check-in and a deposit into a move that otherwise looks like an owner-occupier one.
What we do about it
Survey for both legs and tell you what the outward decisions will cost you on the return
Work around an academic calendar rather than around ours
Photograph a let property at check-in and check-out and send you both sets
Keep a single inventory across the term so the return is a reconciliation rather than a rediscovery
The trap
Treating the arrival as the whole job. The return is already on the horizon and it is much cheaper if somebody thought about it at the start.
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Here on a full posting?
A short attachment, a full posting, indefinitely, or not at all any more. That one answer gets us further than a room count does, and it is the first thing we will ask.