Moving house advice
Discussion
The time has come to stick the house on the market and as we have the next place lined up already I'm hoping for a fairly quick sale (crosses fingers!)
However, when I moved into this place 8 years ago the moving process was quite simple. Tv - Check. Stereo - Check. Bed - Check. All in the back of a mates van and off I went. After 8 years I've managed to gather a load of crap!
Anyway my point is what's your advice for doing this? When you moved what were the things you would have done differently? Any good hints or tips? I'm sticking loads of stuff on ebay in order to keep the amount of stuff we move to a minimum as I won't need to take it with me to the next place.
However, when I moved into this place 8 years ago the moving process was quite simple. Tv - Check. Stereo - Check. Bed - Check. All in the back of a mates van and off I went. After 8 years I've managed to gather a load of crap!
Anyway my point is what's your advice for doing this? When you moved what were the things you would have done differently? Any good hints or tips? I'm sticking loads of stuff on ebay in order to keep the amount of stuff we move to a minimum as I won't need to take it with me to the next place.
Two weeks before the move we cleared out the loft & all the s
t, THREE tip trips. One week before we moved everything we didn't need into the garage. Night before we boxed everything up.
On moving day my bro & sister helped load everything into a Luton & little 'un went to GP's for the day.
If moving yourself what i would say is move the HEAVY stuff first, our TV weighs 100Kg & at the end of a long day it felt VERY heavy!
I would only move ourselves again if we were going to a bigger house as it's easy-you can just dump everything at the other end & worry later.
If the move isn't to a larger property or smaller i would pay someone as everything will need to go in the correct place from day 1.
Good luck with the sale & "enjoy" moving day, the bank transfering our ££ was more stressfull than the move itself.
Oddly, the move was a LOT less stressfull than when we moved to our first house too!
t, THREE tip trips. One week before we moved everything we didn't need into the garage. Night before we boxed everything up.On moving day my bro & sister helped load everything into a Luton & little 'un went to GP's for the day.
If moving yourself what i would say is move the HEAVY stuff first, our TV weighs 100Kg & at the end of a long day it felt VERY heavy!
I would only move ourselves again if we were going to a bigger house as it's easy-you can just dump everything at the other end & worry later.
If the move isn't to a larger property or smaller i would pay someone as everything will need to go in the correct place from day 1.
Good luck with the sale & "enjoy" moving day, the bank transfering our ££ was more stressfull than the move itself.
Oddly, the move was a LOT less stressfull than when we moved to our first house too!
theboyfold said:
The time has come to stick the house on the market and as we have the next place lined up already I'm hoping for a fairly quick sale (crosses fingers!)
Interesting, have they accepted your offer before you have marketed your place? They wouldn't even entertain an offer until I'd sold mine, fortunately I sold mine within a week and everything is working out so far...As for moving, 100% agree with heavy things first! especially if they have to go up stairs the other end!
Do all your packing well in advance, as it takes way longer than you think and try to be ruthless with throwing stuff out (especially if its hers
)We just bought a second house before we'd sold the first. We've been moving in since 11 December and we still haven't moved even half our stuff across.
The upside of this is that you can find homes for everything you move in as you go along. The downside is that the move seems to go on forever! I think I'm going to hire a van over the Easter break and shift a load of stuff then.
The upside of this is that you can find homes for everything you move in as you go along. The downside is that the move seems to go on forever! I think I'm going to hire a van over the Easter break and shift a load of stuff then.
Make one of the first jobs, to make your bed - you won't want to have to faff around with all of that when you're totally cream crackered!
Make sure "essentials" are easy to find, i.e. kettle, teabags, milk, etc..
As mentioned I would be brutal with stuff. Throw things out that are rubbish, put stuff to charity or carboot or ebay other items. The less you have to move the cheaper and easier it will be. Be honest at the same time, if some items have sat in the loft/cupboard for more than 1 year, untouched, they are mostly unlikely to ever get used (an over generalisation, but I'm sure you get the picture).
Make sure "essentials" are easy to find, i.e. kettle, teabags, milk, etc..
As mentioned I would be brutal with stuff. Throw things out that are rubbish, put stuff to charity or carboot or ebay other items. The less you have to move the cheaper and easier it will be. Be honest at the same time, if some items have sat in the loft/cupboard for more than 1 year, untouched, they are mostly unlikely to ever get used (an over generalisation, but I'm sure you get the picture).
Make sure you get an itenary of contents in each box.
Log it on a worksheet and number the box accordingly.
Makes finding stuff a whole load simpler than just rooting through everything without any idea whats in the 100 or so boxes you may have packed.
We've just moved and used removal company for the 3rd time. We used their boxes and packed them gradually over a 3 week period, stakcing them all in (what was) the dining room.
Come move day, they shifted the bigger furniture and all the boxes. Thgey supplied tape, packing materials and boxes.
The most stress free way of doing it I reckon and it cost us £600. 3 guys from the removal company, 1 17 ton truck and 2 luton vans had us moved out within 4 hours and safely moved into our new house within 3 hours.
Log it on a worksheet and number the box accordingly.
Makes finding stuff a whole load simpler than just rooting through everything without any idea whats in the 100 or so boxes you may have packed.
We've just moved and used removal company for the 3rd time. We used their boxes and packed them gradually over a 3 week period, stakcing them all in (what was) the dining room.
Come move day, they shifted the bigger furniture and all the boxes. Thgey supplied tape, packing materials and boxes.
The most stress free way of doing it I reckon and it cost us £600. 3 guys from the removal company, 1 17 ton truck and 2 luton vans had us moved out within 4 hours and safely moved into our new house within 3 hours.
Not sure I understand what you mean, but we had 15 boxes for the kitchen alone, which if we'd just labelled Kitchen, wouldn't have been very helpful when we tring to find dinner plates the day after the move.
Meant we could just get the stuff we needed, the other stuff got unpacked over the following 3-4 days, a few boxes at at time.
Meant we could just get the stuff we needed, the other stuff got unpacked over the following 3-4 days, a few boxes at at time.
Thanks for all the replies.
Alex - I hear what you are saying about the removal guys, it's not a bad idea especially as I have a bad back! Although, I think if they took apart my bedroom furniture they might never get it back together again!!
The house we are moving into is already owned 50% by my wife, so we are just buying out her brother's share, so it's a nice simple deal 
I'll look into the website, but the fees are quite small and 2 of the agents have said they have at least 2 viewings ready. Not too bad as we only met with them today, but as houses on my street hardly come up it should be quite easy to shift.
Alex - I hear what you are saying about the removal guys, it's not a bad idea especially as I have a bad back! Although, I think if they took apart my bedroom furniture they might never get it back together again!!
vxsmithers said:
theboyfold said:
The time has come to stick the house on the market and as we have the next place lined up already I'm hoping for a fairly quick sale (crosses fingers!)
Interesting, have they accepted your offer before you have marketed your place? dave_s13 said:
Whooaaaah there fella.
Sell you feckin house first!
Worry about the man with a van after.
If you haven't already got it on the market I can recommend housenetwork.co.uk.
Sold our house in 3 weeks and they are very good to deal with. Total cost £460ish.
Just trying to get a handle on what's involved, so I can be ready. I'm running all over the place over the next few weeks so it will be good to work out what I need to do once the time has come. Even if I don't use any of the advice until the moving day I'll at least be prepared. Sell you feckin house first!
Worry about the man with a van after.
If you haven't already got it on the market I can recommend housenetwork.co.uk.
Sold our house in 3 weeks and they are very good to deal with. Total cost £460ish.
I'll look into the website, but the fees are quite small and 2 of the agents have said they have at least 2 viewings ready. Not too bad as we only met with them today, but as houses on my street hardly come up it should be quite easy to shift.
What do you mean "the fees are quite small"?
Usual EA fee is at least 1%, depends on value of you property I suppose.
I was very sceptical about housenetwork but took a risk. We got 2 viewings in the first week.
Everyone looking for a house uses Rightmove, if it's on there then the 2 viewing the EA has already got you will still find there way.
I saved just over a grand by using HN. Unless your property has something unique about it needing some specialist help then I don't see how a conventional EA justifies their fee.
Usual EA fee is at least 1%, depends on value of you property I suppose.
I was very sceptical about housenetwork but took a risk. We got 2 viewings in the first week.
Everyone looking for a house uses Rightmove, if it's on there then the 2 viewing the EA has already got you will still find there way.
I saved just over a grand by using HN. Unless your property has something unique about it needing some specialist help then I don't see how a conventional EA justifies their fee.
dave_s13 said:
What do you mean "the fees are quite small"?
Usual EA fee is at least 1%, depends on value of you property I suppose.
I was very sceptical about housenetwork but took a risk. We got 2 viewings in the first week.
Everyone looking for a house uses Rightmove, if it's on there then the 2 viewing the EA has already got you will still find there way.
I saved just over a grand by using HN. Unless your property has something unique about it needing some specialist help then I don't see how a conventional EA justifies their fee.
The fees we have been offered are just under 1%, and whilst there might be a saving to have the thing that worries me about housenetwork is how you arrange viewings of the house. I'm away a lot and I don't want to make the OH be at home everytime we have a viewing. I work away a lot, so I'd rather leave the agent a key and let them react to the people who call.Usual EA fee is at least 1%, depends on value of you property I suppose.
I was very sceptical about housenetwork but took a risk. We got 2 viewings in the first week.
Everyone looking for a house uses Rightmove, if it's on there then the 2 viewing the EA has already got you will still find there way.
I saved just over a grand by using HN. Unless your property has something unique about it needing some specialist help then I don't see how a conventional EA justifies their fee.
The other thing is that they will be quite active in speaking to a client when they make contact with them, they should be able to put the right people in front of the house. Granted lots of people can search, but I think it might help a little more.
Oddly I've wanted to start a site like housenetwork for sometime, but have done nothing about it! So I confess there is a degree of irony in me using an agent...
Talking of EA's and fee's has just reminded me what i would have done differntly-a homemade sign in the front garden!! Seriously, considering the market was dead our EA was st! We actually sold to a BTL investor who lived around the corner, they had left messages with EA but eventually knocked on our door! I could have told the EA to ps off & paid £600 odd IIRC but i felt it was off as at the end of the day they did see their sign. I guess maybe too late for you now though & obviously it depends on the location of your house...........
Also, i neighbour sold their this way, i dunno why i didn't try it! (well i do know-at the time we wanted to sell very quickly).
t! We actually sold to a BTL investor who lived around the corner, they had left messages with EA but eventually knocked on our door! I could have told the EA to ps off & paid £600 odd IIRC but i felt it was off as at the end of the day they did see their sign. I guess maybe too late for you now though & obviously it depends on the location of your house...........Also, i neighbour sold their this way, i dunno why i didn't try it! (well i do know-at the time we wanted to sell very quickly).
Because of a gap between selling my old place and moving into our new place, we stuck most of our stuff in storage for a month while we lived with the in-laws.
Even without this gap, I would use a storage place again for the simple reason that we didn't "have" to move all our stuff in on day one (we actually moved in over a few days).
If you're doing this yourself, remember you will need to be out of the house by the time of completion (usually lunchtime, ours was 11am) - far less stressful if you've already shifted 90% of your stuff (esp the big stuff).
I assume what with already owning half the property you may be able to move stuff in "early" anyway.
I think I paid around £150 for 4 weeks storage for the contents of a 1 bed house.
Oh, and I completely agree with moving heavy stuff first. Also make sure you're heavy stuff will go through the front door! Not all houses are as accessible and having to get a screwdriver out at the end of a long day is not nice!
Even without this gap, I would use a storage place again for the simple reason that we didn't "have" to move all our stuff in on day one (we actually moved in over a few days).
If you're doing this yourself, remember you will need to be out of the house by the time of completion (usually lunchtime, ours was 11am) - far less stressful if you've already shifted 90% of your stuff (esp the big stuff).
I assume what with already owning half the property you may be able to move stuff in "early" anyway.
I think I paid around £150 for 4 weeks storage for the contents of a 1 bed house.
Oh, and I completely agree with moving heavy stuff first. Also make sure you're heavy stuff will go through the front door! Not all houses are as accessible and having to get a screwdriver out at the end of a long day is not nice!
We can move some of our stuff over before we move in, although I don't want to take liberties with it as I want to make sure everything is as amicable as possible. I've looked into storage and it's not a bad idea to move stuff into there beforehand.
I think that's worth doing once we have an offer in on the place and we know things are going through.
eta: dave_s13
How does it work with house network when it comes to viewings? Is it something that you have to manage yourself? From what I've seen on the site it looks like the 'estate agent' is just a guy on the end of the phone who acts as an intermediary.
I think that's worth doing once we have an offer in on the place and we know things are going through.
eta: dave_s13
How does it work with house network when it comes to viewings? Is it something that you have to manage yourself? From what I've seen on the site it looks like the 'estate agent' is just a guy on the end of the phone who acts as an intermediary.
Edited by theboyfold on Friday 19th March 09:19
I'll second the labelling of boxes and listing of the contents. If you've got fifty boxes, finding a fork will be a nightmare.
Also pack an overnight bag for both of you, with toothpaste, soap, clean clothes etc. That way in the evening or next morning you don't have a nightmare trying to unpack before you can get clean. Do the same with a couple of mugs, teas spoons, tea coffee etc.
I also left a new home card, tea coffee and a bottle of bubbly for the new owners of the places I'd sold. It made them much more ameniable during the seven day cooling period. So for example when the found a switch that didn't work properly they were a bit more relaxed about it rather than forcing me to pay for an electrician etc. Or I realised I'd left something in shed they were really nice about letting me go get it.
You might want to measure up your big furniture first and check if it will go through the front or back doors, up stairs etc. (if you can get in to measure doors at new place). Chances are you will have to take furniture apart or take the door or window out to move stuff in. If you've got to do that then think about how many trips you've got to make as someone will have to sit at the new house whilst you move if there is no door!
Also pack an overnight bag for both of you, with toothpaste, soap, clean clothes etc. That way in the evening or next morning you don't have a nightmare trying to unpack before you can get clean. Do the same with a couple of mugs, teas spoons, tea coffee etc.
I also left a new home card, tea coffee and a bottle of bubbly for the new owners of the places I'd sold. It made them much more ameniable during the seven day cooling period. So for example when the found a switch that didn't work properly they were a bit more relaxed about it rather than forcing me to pay for an electrician etc. Or I realised I'd left something in shed they were really nice about letting me go get it.
You might want to measure up your big furniture first and check if it will go through the front or back doors, up stairs etc. (if you can get in to measure doors at new place). Chances are you will have to take furniture apart or take the door or window out to move stuff in. If you've got to do that then think about how many trips you've got to make as someone will have to sit at the new house whilst you move if there is no door!
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