Hello everyone! These last few weeks have been absolute insanity packing and moving into our new apartment, but I’m beyond excited to be posting this first post, and thrilled for the ones to come as well!! So I thought I’d round up a handy little list of tips and lessons that I learned throughout this process of being first time homebuyers and moving into our apartment.
1. Save, save, save for those extra costs
The whole process of buying a place for us was relatively quick (looking back in hindsight!). In May we contacted a realtor, begun looking at apartments, and five months later, we fell in love with our current apartment and bought it! We had a good chunk of change saved up, but you really don’t realize how many fees and expenses there are with moving and buying a home. Everything from lawyer’s fees, to strata moving costs, to buying pizza for all your moving helpers on moving day. Save more than you think that you’ll need! And then save some more!
2. Contact the buildings’ caretakers immediately
Rookie mistake here, I thought I could call and book the elevators in both buildings a few days in advance and not have any problems. Turns out, FOUR other people were moving into our new building the same weekend as us, which made for a tight elevator moving schedule. We ended up having to move on a Friday night and do some serious schedule shuffling! So make sure to get all your ducks in a row as soon as possible, and it’ll make moving a breeze!
3. Label all your boxes
This may seem ridiculously obvious, but it really does help. Especially in those last few days where I was being asked for specific things that I had already packed (haha oops!). Case in point, having the boxes labeled made it easy for me to find the bike locks that we needed to lock our bikes in the storage in our new apartment building. Crisis averted! Looking back though, too many boxes were labeled “Misc Items”, haha so I could have probably even done a better job on this one!
4. Surround yourself with a great support team
You’re going to have A LOT of questions when buying your first apartment, I know we did! So it really helped to have a great real estate agent and mortgage broker who were experienced with first time home buyers and helped answer all of our questions, every step of the way. Our lawyers were also super patient and went through all the nitty gritty paperwork with us to make sure we understood it all. Our awesome moving team consisted of our close friends and family who helped us move! I’ve read many different opinions on whether its worthwhile hiring movers, and I just think it depends on your specific case. If you’re moving an entire house, then I can see how movers would be wonderful! But in our case, we were trying to save money, and our 1-bedroom apartment was relatively manageable thanks to our lovely helpers!
5. Take some time for yourself
Try to not let the stress of moving get to you. I know that’s easier said than done, I would know! I’m terrible at letting myself get overwhelmed and stressed out during big events like moving, when there are way too many things to do and just never enough time. I consciously have to tell myself (and so does Guido!) to just breathe and relax. It’ll all get done! Make sure you have things organized, keep those to do lists up to date, and enjoy the process. Have tons of fun, it’s an exciting time in your life! 🙂
And now comes the fun part of decorating our new apartment and making it our own! Do any of you have some great tips for first time home buyers and moving? I’d love to hear them!
XO
Danielle