Don’t forget these 5 crucial things when moving into your new home

It’s no secret that moving into a new home can be as stressful as it can be exciting. By the time you’ve confirmed the settlement date, hired the moving truck, juggled where to put the kids or pets on moving day, packed up that collection of football knick knacks that hold ‘priceless sentimental value’, it’s no wonder that sometimes the things that aren’t so glaringly important can be easily forgotten.

Maybe you’re an old hand at moving house and can juggle packing boxes in one hand while directing your ‘helpers’, ahem slaves, with the other, or maybe this is your first time and are starting to feel the overwhelm. Whatever stage you’re at, keeping this list handy will ensure that your move in day will run smoothly with no last minute catastrophes.

1. Purchase home and contents insurance

Buying a house is most likely the biggest investment you will ever make and it will probably be the most valuable asset that you own. Therefore, ensuring that your home is insured is a smart move. Start looking at insurance packages several weeks or even a month or more before your settlement date.

Depending on where you live and what provider you choose to use, you may be required to purchase insurance cover before your finance loan even gets approved, so make sure you do your research to get the best and most comprehensive insurance possible for your new home!

Make sure you also look into contents insurance. This insurance will cover all of your personal belongings that will reside within your home such as furniture, appliances, TV, computers etc.

Home insurance does not cover your belongings, it will only cover anything that makes up the house itself.

2. Transfer the utilities into your name

There would be nothing worse than settling into your new home only to have the lights go out or having the shower spout cold water. Avoid this by ensuring that you have contacted the utilities provider and had the account transferred into your name. It is quite simple to do and these days can mostly be done online, especially with water and electricity services. And if not online, usually a quick phone call will be sufficient.

Utilities to organise can include; water, electricity, gas (either town gas or cylinder) and internet service. Make sure you have found out whether your new house already has an NBN connection just in case you need to organise a new connection with your service provider as this can sometimes take some time.

3. Change your place of residence

Update any accounts that have your official place of residence as a requirement, especially if they send you documents via post. This is especially important for the electoral role and voting registration so make sure you keep your details up to date. You can do this by visiting your state government website and electing to change your details.

As for any other post that you may have forgotten about, let your friendly local post office know that you’ve moved house and they can redirect any mail straight to your new address.

4. Make sure your furniture fits

What could be more annoying than hoisting your heavy family couch onto the delivery truck, lugging it up the driveway and squeezing it through the front door to your new house, only to find it won’t fit in your new lounge? It would be enough to make you pull your hair out!

Save yourself some time and frustration by taking measurements in your new house before moving day and planning where everything is going to fit. Measure the kitchen fridge space, dishwasher recess, room lengths and even doorway widths to make sure that everything will get through.

This is a good task to carry out at the final viewing, your real estate agent won’t mind, they’ve seen it all before!

5. Change the locks

Whilst, not a mandatory practice when moving into a new house, this can be great for your peace of mind when it comes to security. This is especially true if your new home was previously a rental, where there could have been multiple sets of keys that changed hands between tenants, agents, tradespeople, and more.

There could even be spare keys floating around with friends or family of the previous owners.

Changing the locks is not costly and is a relatively quick job. Just give your local locksmith a call and they’ll have it done in no time.

Moving house is not always easy, but with these tips above you can reduce your stress by having them organised well ahead of time and enjoy setting up your new home without the feeling of having forgotten something important.

If you do feel that you’ve forgotten something or you’d just like a little more assistance or information, you can always go to your real estate agent, they have guided many people through this process and would be more than happy to help with any questions that you may have. Happy moving!