Don’t leave things to chance – planning ahead will increase your chance of a stress-free house move.
One of the peak times for home moves in the UK is late August, particularly just before or after August bank holiday, when we, and most removal firms get fully booked several weeks ahead.
Usually we see a slight reduction in activity in September, but this year it’s really busy. Why?
A look of people are moving home at the moment. Despite the depressing stories we’re all used to hearing in the news, from what we can see the property market is quite buoyant in Nottingham, Lincolnshire and the surrounding counties. There has been a slow-down in London, which of course influences news coverage, but in the East Midlands, house prices have increased by over 4% in the last 12 months (source: article in The Guardian August 2018).
According to a recent survey by Lloyds Banking Group house moving activity in the first 6 months of 2018 has been boosted by first time buyers.
How do you set a date for your house move?
Where house movers are buying a new home, there are of course several steps to go through once you’ve made the decision to buy a property and your offer has been accepted. You’ll need to engage a solicitor or conveyancer, arrange a mortgage, get surveys done etc, and delays could occur with any or all of these activities. Whereas people usually hope that everything can be completed quickly (and the general guidelines are 8-12 weeks from offer to completion) sometimes it can take months.
We’ve heard from several customers recently that conveyancing seems to be taking longer than expected and there could be a variety of reasons for this, but it’s just as well to be aware. That’s one of the reasons why we’ve already taken a lot of bookings for September – people who expected to move during the school holidays have had to delay things.
Choosing the right conveyancer can be critical to all of this and it isn’t something you do every day, so take advice and recommendations if you can. We’ve found this article from the Home Owners Alliance quite useful in comparing some of the available options. If you are taking out a mortgage, your lender may have some advice or have a preferred supplier list, so you might want to ask about that too. Regardless of who you choose, our advice is to keep in regular contact with them, so you’ll know how things are progressing and, if anything should be delayed, you’ll know straight away, then you can decide how to deal with it.
Are you thinking of moving house later this year?
The delays we’re seeing at the moment are likely to have a knock-on effect into October and November at least, so if you are planning to buy a property and move house later in the year, we’d advise you to get cracking! The sooner you start the legal process the better, and if you are realistic about the timescales from the outset, making allowances for the delays that could happen, you’ll have a better chance of exchanging contracts well before completion, so you can agree a moving date that suits you and of course you’ll make the move less stressful.
It’s a good idea to think about arranging your removals early on too, as companies like Ballards have a lot of experience which you can tap into. Once you’ve had your home survey done and accepted your removals quote, we can plan a provisional moving date, so that’s one thing sorted. We’ll do our best to work with you if the dates change along the way – the more notice you can give us, the better of course.