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Health & Fitness

It's Time to Move

When people choose to buy a home, we think about all of the costs of buying and selling, but usually don't include the cost to move in their decision. There's more to think about than just the cost.

I've been absent from my posts for a couple weeks because I've been MOVING! Every Realtor should be required to move once a year. That way, we will understand what our clients go through. We go through the entire process of helping someone buy or sell their home, but once the deal closes, we say we're closed and celebrate that we did such a great job for our clients, but we forget that they're not done yet. They say the pain of moving is like childbirth, by the time you're ready to do it again, you forget how painful it was.

Now, unlike most people, we were fortunate enough to be able to move slowly. I don't know if that is better or worse. It's like pulling off a band-aid, yank it and get the move done in one day or drag it out for days or weeks. We actually spent two weeks moving, a few boxes at a time. We have been joking about the fact that we pretty much moved our entire house using just two boxes. We packed, loaded the back of the Ford Edge, drove 5 blocks and unpacked and then used the same two boxes again the next day.

When people make a decision to buy a home, everyone thinks about the costs to sell a home, the costs to buy, lender fees, escrow fees, title insurance, commissions, taxes but people forget to consider the cost to move. I always try to warn buyers to prepare for that cost. It's amazing when some one calls me and says that they called a few moving companies and they want to charge $5,000 to move. I always try to get my clients to get an estimate so they can figure that in their decision, but most people think it's not going to be that much or that I'll move myself.  After the last two weeks of packing and unpacking, ripped bags of clothes, broken boxes, paper cuts, sore backs and not remembering which house I was in when I woke up in the morning, movers are my new heroes. Even if you rent a truck and get all of your friends together to help move in one day by offering them pizza and beer, it costs a lot to move.

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The next time you think about moving, think about the nights of being up all night packing after a long day at work, think about your back and feet hurting so bad you thought you just hiked the Appalachian Trail, think about the smell in that rented moving truck that you can't get out of your clothes and think about the friends with caller ID now that won't take your calls anymore. Call a mover, they're worth every dime you will pay them.

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