Firbanks – Hacks for A Better House-Move (Part 1)

It’s hard to find anyone prepared to tell you that moving house is easy. In fact, you’re more likely to be confronted by doom-mongers, filling your head with worst-case scenarios, misgivings and horror stories. In no time at all, you can go from calm and collected to frazzled and frightened. This is particularly the case if you’ve had a bad experience in the past or it’s your first big move. But, in fact, we’ve seen countless examples of straightforward, low-stress moves, so we know that it’s more than just a dim, distant possibility. And it doesn’t have to come down to anything as precarious as sheer good luck; there are plenty of things you can do at any stage of a move to keep things calm and on track. Here are just a few of the ideas we’ve collected over the years to help our customers manage their move successfully:

1. Don’t do Saturday viewings. When you’re looking for your new dream-home, try to make it any other day of the week. Saturdays get crowded and this enables estate agents to create the impression of demand and then manoeuvre you into agreeing to things too quickly and exceeding your carefully-planned budget.
2. See a property at more than one time of day. What if the flat that looked so enchanting in the morning is a different story at night? It’s entirely possible. Sometimes a quiet, pretty street in the daytime is a place where noisy gangs congregate under cover of darkness. Sometimes anti-social neighbours come out to play once daylight is over and you get an entirely different impression of your potential new home.
3. Make an ‘essentials’ box for your first 24 hours in the new place. Moving day can be tiring and if you’re not availing yourself of a packing/unpacking service [HYPERLINK], you may want to crash before you’ve had a chance to do much unpacking. Your essentials box can contain pyjamas, first-aid kit, kettle, basics for breakfast, toiletries, toothbrushes and so on.
4. Create a system for easy unpacking. This can be something like colour-coding your cardboard boxes by room, using highlighter pen or coloured duct tape. If it’s done conspicuously enough, you’ll then be able to tell at a glance, even from a distance, which box is for which room.
5. Declutter and throw away – as much as you possibly can. This task pays dividends – less stuff means less time spent on moving, which means lower charges from your removals company. Be unsentimental and ruthless with clothes, bric-à-brac and anything you haven’t used in the last year.