Spring is typically the time of year when people start planning for the future and feel full of optimism and a desire for positive change - so they start putting offers in on new houses. By summer, the housing market is awash with people finalising agreements and booking removals vans ready for completion day. Summer is, therefore, a very popular time of year to move!
There are also practical advantages to moving house in summer - the days are longer, and there’s a (slightly) lower chance of rain, so you’ll have more time and opportunity to load and unload boxes. You might even get a bit of time in the evening to take a walk around and get a feel for your new neighbourhood before it gets dark.
Although there are many advantages to moving in summer, It’s not all smooth sailing. It will probably be hot, for a start, and hefting all your belongings around in a single hot, humid day won’t be much fun. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say, so here are some of the potential pitfalls of moving in the summer and how using a self storage unit for a few days or weeks could help you to dodge them!
1. Declutter
The weeks in the run-up to a house move are the best time to have a really good clear-out. Sell, gift or donate anything you don’t want or need anymore so you don’t move your unnecessary clutter from one house to the next.
Be careful not to get rid of too much. If you’re hesitant to dispose of a particular item, don’t do anything hasty - you could always move it into storage and decide whether to keep it after you’ve settled into your new home.
Consider renting a self storage unit for all those belongings you definitely won’t be using for a few weeks or months. Things like, Christmas decorations, sporting equipment, extra bedding and winter clothes. You can move those things into your self storage unit early in the moving process, so you’re just left with packing the essentials.
If you’re planning to use a removals firm, this will lower the cost (as removals companies charge according to how much they’ll be moving as well as how far they’ll be moving it). If you’re planning to do the removals yourself, this will reduce the amount of box-shifting you’ll have to do on a hot day!
2. Plan ahead for your children
If you have children, they’ll probably be off school if you move over summer. That’s great for your children, who will have had the chance to end their school year properly and say goodbye to friends. It might not be great for you, as you’ll have to manage the house move whilst entertaining / supervising / organising your children.
Your children might be keen to help, which is lovely … but we all know how much effort is involved in allowing children to ‘help’! It’s important to make them feel involved and excited about their new home, but there’s a limit to your emotional capacity to do that when you’re surrounded by boxes and the moving van is late.
If possible, arrange for a family member to take your children out for the day. They can have a lovely last evening and night in their old bedrooms, and then spend the day doing something fun while you do all the donkey work. Involve them in the process before moving day by helping them to pack their belongings in boxes and label them.
Keep special items such as favourite soft toys in a separate box to be taken to the new house in the car with you and the children at the end of the day. Make sure their beds are installed first, and help them to picture where their other furniture might go once everything has been unpacked.
By moving non-essential belongings into a storage unit in the days/weeks leading up to moving day (see below), the big day itself won’t be too overwhelming or time-consuming. So, if you can’t get anyone to look after your children (or your children are really very insistent on ‘helping’), at least it won’t be an all-day event.
3. Manage your moving day efficiently with self storage
There are two ways you can use self storage when moving house. It can be used as an integral part of moving house or as a back-up plan.
Self storage as part of ‘Plan A’
There’s a lot of uncertainty and potential for last-minute hiccups when moving house, but if you’re as certain as you can be that completion day will go ahead as planned, self storage can be useful as part of your planned removals process.
To keep stress to a minimum when moving this summer:
- Choose and book a reputable removals company early and declutter as above to keep your costs down as much as possible.
- If you’re doing the removals yourself, shop around and hire a van. Check out the prices of van rentals from your local DIY store - they rent out vans for a few hours at a time and are often the cheapest option.
- Rent a self storage unit for a few days to keep everything safe and secure. Our units can be rented for 2 weeks at a time but you can move your belongings in and out of your unit whenever you like during that time.
- Move the bulk of your belongings into a self storage unit before moving day. Doing this will let you rent a van or hire a removals company at a cheaper, midweek rate and save a lot of time and energy on the day.. If you only have your essential furniture to move on completion day (beds, settee, white goods) this will make moving day a lot quicker and easier, and you can settle into your new home at leisure by bringing the rest of your stuff out of storage as and when you’re ready for it.
- Alternatively, is there anyone you could stay with for a few days? Could you stay in a cheap hotel for a couple of nights? If so, you could move everything into your storage unit a few days before you get the keys to your new house.
- If the worst happens and your purchase is delayed by a week or so, you could go through with your sale as planned by asking your removals company to move your large items straight to your self storage unit if this hasn’t been done already. You’d then need to find somewhere to stay for a few nights until your purchase can complete. If it’s the summer, the children are off school anyway so why not make it a little holiday?
Self storage as ‘Plan B’
One of the main worries people have when moving house is that something will go wrong on completion day, and your sale or purchase falls through. There’s not an awful lot you can do if your buyers pull out, but if there’s an unexpected delay in being able to buy your new house, you could still sell your old one if you have a self storage unit as a backup plan.
Under ‘Plan B’, be prepared to:
- Move in with friends or family or move into a hotel for a few days, and
- Move your household contents into a self storage unit until your purchase can go ahead.
In the days leading up to your move, make enquiries of your local Safestore and check that we’d have space for your belongings if your house purchase falls through. Find out about the cost of local hotels, or even at the cost of short breaks and have an impromptu holiday!
Let us help take the stress out of moving day for you
If you think we can help you to move house this summer, call our team, chat with us online or send us an email. We can help you to choose the right size of unit and give you a no-obligation quote so that you can accurately budget for your Plan A or Plan B.