The True Cost of Moving: What Catches Buyers Off Guard

Buyers budget carefully for the down payment and the closing costs, and then get blindsided by the fortnight after. The move itself is usually the smallest line on the list.

Here is what actually lands, roughly in the order it hits.

The move

Three ways to do it, and the gap between them is large.

• Do it yourself. Truck rental, mileage, fuel, boxes, tape, blankets, a dolly, and pizza for whoever you talked into helping. Cheapest by a distance, and it costs you a weekend and your back.
• Container service. They drop a container, you load it, they move it, you unload. A middle option that works well when your closing dates do not line up, because the container can sit for a while.
• Full service. They pack, load, move and unload. Expensive, and worth it if you are moving a full house, have small children, or are working through the move.

A local move within the metro is a different order of cost from an interstate move, and hourly crews price by crew size and time. Get three written quotes rather than one, because the spread between movers on the same job is wider than most people expect.

One thing to ask about specifically: valuation coverage. The basic liability included in a move is calculated by weight, not by value, which means a damaged television is compensated at a few dollars a pound. Full value protection costs extra. Decide deliberately rather than finding out afterwards.

The deposits and connection fees

This is the category that surprises people, because each item is small and there are a lot of them.

• Electricity, gas and water setup or transfer.
• Internet installation, which often includes an activation fee and sometimes an equipment charge.
• Sewer and garbage service, if they are billed separately where you are moving.
• Security deposits on any of the above, if your credit file is thin.

Individually trivial, collectively several hundred dollars in the same week you paid for everything else.

The overlap

The expensive scenario is owning or renting two places at once. If your closing is on the fifteenth and your lease runs to the end of the month, you are paying twice for two weeks.

Sometimes that overlap is worth buying on purpose. Moving in stages, painting before the furniture arrives and cleaning an empty house is far easier than doing it around boxes. Just make it a decision rather than an accident, and put the number in your budget.

If the dates do not line up at all, you are looking at storage, which means a monthly fee plus a second load and unload.

The first-week-in-the-house costs

These are not moving costs exactly, but they arrive in the same fortnight and they come out of the same account.

• Rekeying or new locks. On a resale home this is non-negotiable, because you have no idea how many keys exist. On a new build the locks are new, which is one genuine advantage.
• Window coverings. The one that gets everybody. A new home frequently comes without blinds, and covering a whole house is a four-figure expense you did not plan for. This is exactly the sort of thing a builder incentive can cover if you ask for it as part of the package, which I go through in the incentives post.
• Appliances. Check what conveys. A washer and dryer, and sometimes a refrigerator, are frequently not included.
• Cleaning, at the place you are leaving if you are a tenant, and often at the place you are arriving.
• Fencing and landscaping on a new build. Front yards are usually finished. Back yards frequently are not, and if you have a dog that becomes urgent rather than optional.
• Curtain rods, shelving, a lawnmower, garbage bins, an extra set of tools. The long tail of small purchases that a new house generates.

The escrow deposit at closing

Worth calling out because it is real cash and it is not a fee.

At closing your lender collects several months of property tax and insurance up front to seed the escrow account. It is your money and it goes toward your own bills, but it leaves your account on closing day along with everything else. On a $500,000 home that is commonly a couple of thousand dollars.

And on a new build, be aware that the account is often sized on a land-only tax assessment, so the payment corrects upward once the finished house is assessed. That is the mechanism I described in the escrow post, and it is worth knowing before it happens rather than after.

What I tell people to do

Keep a moving fund separate from your down payment

A few thousand dollars, held apart, that is not part of your closing money. The number depends entirely on how much house you are moving and how much you do yourself, so build it from the list above rather than from a rule of thumb.

Ask for the small stuff in the negotiation

Blinds, a fence, appliances, a closing cost credit that covers your escrow deposit. These are cheap for a builder to include relative to a price reduction, and they are things you would otherwise buy in your first month. Ask for them by name.

Get quotes early

Movers book out in summer, which is when most people close. Getting three quotes in your inspection period costs nothing and tells you the real number while you can still plan around it.

Do not move on closing day

Funding can slip. Keys can arrive at four in the afternoon. Booking the truck for the same day as closing means the one thing you cannot control is holding up the one thing you have paid for. Give yourself a day.

The short version

The truck is the cheap part. The expensive part is the deposits, the overlap, the window coverings and the fence, and all of it arrives in the same two weeks as the largest cheque you have ever written.

Plan for it and the move is a busy weekend. Do not, and it becomes the reason your first months in a new house feel tight.

If you want a realistic list for a specific home, including whether it comes with blinds and a finished back yard, just ask me before you write the offer. There is also a broader run-through of the process in the buyer’s guide.