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Great Cut The Cost Of Moving Home Hunt

What's it about?

Moving Home is rated as one of the most stressful times in our lives, add onto that the fact its expensive and overall I think its safe to say "it ain't fun!" So I thought I would tap MoneySavers' collective knowledge to find the top ideas for cutting the cost and the stress.

Simply click reply to add your suggestion


Related articles:

Home Insurance Cost Cutting
Mortgages: Sneakily Cut The Cost

Note: This is about the process of moving house not buying and or selling a home (there are other threads in this board on that) so i've removed the posts that took it off topic.

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Martin Lewis, Money Saving Expert.
Please note, answers don't constitute financial advice, it is based on generalised journalistic research. Always ensure any decision is made with regards to your own individual circumstance.
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Comments

  • silvercar
    silvercar Posts: 46,829
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    Moving house is the ideal time to renegotiate deals on phone, sky etc.

    You have to phone the companies anyway to provide new service, so use the opportunity to get the best deals. Remember you are speaking to the disconnection team who are the people who can easlily offer you the greatest deals to stay.

    Tell Sky the cable company have offered XX to you as a new customer but you would prefer to stay with Sky if they can offer you the latest new customer deals.

    Same with telephone service and broadband.

    Remember Maritn's advice about not cutting off your nose to spite your face. If they say "OK, we'll disconnect you" say you will think about it and let them know.

    Remember to give notice to utilities otherwise they'll charge you for time after you've moved.
    I'm a Forum Ambassador on The Coronavirus Boards as well as the housing, mortgages and student money saving boards. I volunteer to help get your forum questions answered and keep the forum running smoothly. Forum Ambassadors are not moderators and don't read every post. If you spot an illegal or inappropriate post then please report it to [email protected] (it's not part of my role to deal with this). Any views are mine and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.com.
  • Monkeybutt
    Monkeybutt Posts: 41 Forumite
    When we moved Sky wanted £40 to re-install a new dish at our new property, I then noticed a flyer that came through the door advertising free installation and a new box for new customers, as well as half price package for the first 3 months.

    I asked to be put through to Customer Services and asked them to explain why they were offering better packages to new customers than existing ones, pointed out that I had been a customer for the last 4 years and deserved to be treated as such.

    Upshot was that they agreed to give me the new customer package, this meant the moving house fee of £40 was waived, 1/2 price for 3 months ( £60 ) and a shiny new box.

    Give it a go, easy way to save £100 plus a new box. :D
  • Yolanda_2
    Yolanda_2 Posts: 21 Forumite
    When you put your house up for sale - remember take on board all the valuations of all the estate agents, but then you can state how much you wish to sell for and who with.

    Negotiate a good % too. Estate agent fees are whatever you negotiate them to be - go down to 1% just beacause their paperwork says 3% get them to cross it out! Also agree to the % of the selling costs not the valuation that way the estate agents will then have more of an incentive to negotiate a better price for you.

    For the best valuation and to actually sell the house really clear out your clutter, even repaint. Its amazing how many people can't see through grime, mess etc... Look at each room like its the first time you laid eyes upon it and think minimise rubbish, loud colours.

    House Doctor and Gillian McKeith are good for sorting home and body in my opinion
    Debt - the river in egypt De-nile!
  • courtjester
    courtjester Posts: 758 Forumite
    The biggest element of cost relating to selling a house is the agent's commission - legal fees are small in comparison with most agents fees. The best way to avoid these is to take on the marketing of the property yourself.

    It's now made easy by the maturity of the internet, the viability and effectiveness of the bigger private advertising websites and widespread access to computers, broadband connections and digital cameras.

    The main reason people don't use an online property service to sell a home is because they have never thought about the option - most people simply follow the sheep to their local estate agent, but it really is an easy and effective way to sell nowadays and the savings are enormous.

    All the information to research pricing is now available (free) online courtesy of many websites offering newly released Land Registry 'sold' pricing from this year. The only thing you need is some decent photographs a concise property description and the ability to use the internet.

    With a little effort, you can save a fortune and maintain much better control over the whole process
  • Yolanda_2
    Yolanda_2 Posts: 21 Forumite
    You are very right. And if you are in a 'popular' road a homemade for sale board would be handy. Just need to be careful of potential risks of security. My house is on the market at the moment and I am also using word of mouth and securing private viewings as well as the estate agents.
    Debt - the river in egypt De-nile!
  • >>..potential risks of security..<<

    This is generally overstated by those with a vested interest, mainly by estate agents who don't want you to go it alone. An agent doesn't 'vet' buyers anyway (other than to try and sell them a mortgage), so the risks are the same whether you use an agent or not.

    To my knowledge, the only people who have ever been reported running into difficulty over dodgy buyers are estate agents themselves. Like most modern day 'risks' this is perceived rather than actual and essentially the result of media scaremongering.

    Why should there be a problem anyway? If someone wants to burgle your house, there are much easier routes to follow than trawling property advertising or arranging bogus viewings - what value is there to a crim in knowing that a property is for sale, instead of just walking down a road and seeing which homes are empty whilst people are at work...?

    Measures to deal with personal security during viewings are a matter of simple common sense when showing strangers around your home - the same applies for the majority of clients of agents who end up doing viewings themselves.

    Good luck with your sale and enjoy the savings.... :j
  • As a first time buyer, (still in the process of buying so can't say it is a success yet!!) I just kept repeating the matra that the agent is trying every game in the book to rush us in to a sale at full whack and we should not buy in to any element of his story!

    We kept getting pressured, had really unuseful comments dropped in to conversation, had their boss phone up to tell us he was tryign to rescue our sale etc etc... we were told not to worry about things thrown up in the survey and if we just moved in all could be sorted. Well what a load of rubbish - why would we get a survey if you were going to ignore it! Remebering that everything an estate agent says to you is designed to get you to spend more and speed the process up to them getting their commission rather than being sound advice has saved a a coupel oF grand if not more!

    We phoned around all mates for tips, recommendations and referrals and general advice - our current landlord is a builder and was an amazing source of tips, a friend is an architect and also helped us understand what the surveyors report said and the actual financial implications etc. Another few hundred punds saved on professional fees. My old next door neighbour was a scaffolder - guess who will be asked to do teh scaffolding work when we move - and what rate can he get us...

    Also phoning up the council and enquiring about certain issues such as planning and why a tree was removed (was it subsidence) have actually saved us a fortune in additional searches by lawyers or other specialist surveyors. Approx £200 all told. Websites such as upmystreet.co.uk, nethouseprices.com and the plannign pages of the local council (which even have drwings of all teh plans submitted online) have been invaluable!

    So overall - ask around people who have been there and done it and come at things by asking people how they can help you and from our experience, with the exception of the estate agents who is not actually workign for yoru benefit anyway) they have all done their very best to give us as much help as they can! Good luck! :o)
    Jaime M-G
    :grouphug:
  • Try using https://www.propertybroker.com - it seems to be down at the moment, but I have seen some good private sales on there - estate agents are not allowed!! :o)
    Jaime M-G
    :grouphug:
  • I bought my house via www.propertybroker.co.uk and it was a breeze. I hope the site comes up again soon as I now want to sell the same house on the site. I can't let you know what I think of estate agents on here the rules don't allow it. ;)
  • Yolanda_2
    Yolanda_2 Posts: 21 Forumite
    Shame you can't advertise through Primelocation or rightmove as a private person - or can you? I haven't looked into it yet as although I've thought about private selling before, it was not until courtjester mentioned it in the above post that I saw it as a REAL alternative (that is internet selling). Will give it some thought and keep you posted. Although I take courtjesters point about the security aspect I still feel a little safer with estate agents (in terms of peoples details to view) although nothing ever stops anyone giving a false name to an estate agent prior to a viewing - I know it is completetly irrational but thats me.
    Debt - the river in egypt De-nile!
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