We all know there’s a lot to sort out when you move home and it’s an expensive thing to do, so it’s understandable that people look for any opportunities to save money. Is it worth it?
What does it cost to move house?
Let’s imagine you’re selling a house for £160,000 and buying another for £200,000. There are a lot of costs which you can’t avoid, including:
- Solicitors’ fees: these vary of course, let’s say £1000 to £1200
- Estate agents fees: based on a variable % of sale price, rough estimate £2000
- Survey / valuation of your new property: say £800
- Stamp duty: £1500
We’ve just listed the bigger ones here, so when you add in all of the other bits and pieces associated with moving house, you could easily clock up a bill of around £6000, probably more – just for all the legal and financial arrangements. And of course if your new property is more expensive, all of the costs will be higher.
Moving house is a huge financial and emotional undertaking, then of course there’s the cost of moving your furniture and possessions to your new home.
What value do you put on your possessions?
Particularly when finances are tight, it might be tempting to save money by shopping around for the cheapest deal to move your house contents.
But think about it – on the day of the move, you’ll have a lot to think about and take care of (e.g. Has the money transferred okay, so we can move? Do we have the new house keys? Where’s the cat? Are the children safe?) All this on top of actually moving your possessions.
If your house contents are worth between £20,000 and £50,000, would you want to risk losing or damaging any of them – bearing in mind all of the money you’re already committed to spending?
For the sake of a few hundred pounds, why trust an unregulated, uninsured, un-reviewed, “man with a van” or “chuck with a truck” who charges £300 to move you. It’s not realistic. Moving a houseful of stuff is hard work, needs the right equipment and transport and of course the skill of knowing how to pack fragile items, how to carry furniture safely, protect things from wet weather, protect your new carpets etc – I could go on and on.
A man and van service might be fine to move a few items (in fact we offer that service here at Ballards). For a complete house move though, you need a professional service you can rely on, where everything can be planned and organised for you and you can be sure that everything that’s collected from your old home will arrive safely at your new one.
Remember you get what you pay for. You wouldn’t ask your mate to do your property survey just because he has a set of ladders. Why ask your mate to move you just because he has a van!
Wherever you’ve moving to, trust the specialists, Ballards Removals for a stress-free move – you can’t put a value on that!