Real estate is an expensive industry with lots of hidden costs and fees. When buying or selling a home, it’s easy to get caught up in the actual price of the property. It’s all you focus on, neglecting the many other costs that come into play. If you’re not careful, what seems like a profitable venture can end up being rather expensive. Today, we’re looking at the rising costs of moving home and how to mitigate them. This will mainly include all the different concerns when you’ve bought or sold a house and are preparing to move in or out of it.
The main costs of moving house
Primarily, moving home costs money as you need to get all of your belongings from a to b. We’re not including any expenses like real estate fees or surveys as that happens before you actually move. Instead, you can narrow it down to two main costs:
- Removal costs
- Storage costs
Removal costs can be sky-high for a few reasons. Firstly, removal companies have a tendency to charge pretty high rates. Not only that, but they often charge per hour, or by how much stuff you have to move. This puts you in a position where, if you have a lot of stuff to move, you either have to hope it’s moved as quickly as possible or suffer some substantial charges.
Storage costs aren’t always a problem, but they’re a huge expense in scenarios where you’re moving out without a permanent place to live. A common issue is that you sell your home before finding a new home to live in. As a result, you’re stuck renting an apartment for the foreseeable future. Technically, that’s another cost of moving to worry about! However, you also might have to put a lot of your belongings in storage because they don’t fit in your temporary living space. Thus, you rack up lots of extra charges over many months – or years!
Reducing the cost of moving house
How can you reduce these costs? Firstly, you can find an alternative approach to the typical removals process. There are websites where you can search for shipping companies to send large items to a different location. You can learn more about this, but the concept is that you pay for all of your large furniture and items to be moved to your new home. The shipping rates tend to be much less than the cost of hiring a removal company. Then, you can do the rest by yourself, taking trips back and forth in a car. Is it perfect? No, but it can lower the costs.
As for storage costs, the best approach is to try lining up your new home before you sell the old one. Or, store as much as possible in your temporary accommodation, reducing the storage space you must pay for. Again, it’s not ideal, but you can lower the cost of moving home.
Overall, it’s surprisingly expensive to pack your things and move from one place to the next. Still, with the right approach, you can reduce your expenses and make moving home less of a financial burden.