When Moving…
Want to pause your personality and life as you know for a few months?
It’s easy. Move your family of five and business to a different state.
Moving is an education. Here are some of my observations I have collected along the way.
When plotting a move, you become very busy.
You learn about things like debt-to-income ratio (need to know if locking down a loan) and mortgage rate lock extensions (there’s a fee – so avoid, if possible). You realize that estimated taxes and insurance on realtor.com are shockingly inaccurate, interest rates are so much more than they used to be, and the inspection period can be make or break the deal.
Surprisingly, you realize it is possible to have a clean house with three toddlers. You just have to be motivated by the fear of simultaneously paying two mortgages, box the vast majority of all of their toys, manual-labor-style scrub away marker damage, and stuff your cabinets to capacity. Host a showing. And then watch your house dissolve back into its messy reality within thirty minutes.
It is best to obsessively check your email and be as responsive as possible.
If you do your part, then maybe all will be submitted on time to avoid the dreaded rate lock extension for closing. Or accept that life happens instead, and the pool slab has to be fixed before the loan can be approved. Breathe, because at least you know that one isn’t on you.
Acknowledge and apologize for your new (temporary) annoying personality.
If you do not want to hear about appliance sale prices or the pros and cons of quartz vs quartzite, you probably don’t want to sit next to me at lunch. I will not always care about a kitchen budget or cabinet knobs versus handles. But, at the moment, I care. I really, really care.
Know anyone with extra Amazon boxes?
Take them. Embracing a move and house renovation translates into credit card jail, so you will not receive as many Amazon boxes as you normally would. And thanks to my former life of online shopping, I have many, many sippy cups and fuzzy socks that need to be packed into boxes to make their way to their new home (the one with the beautiful new cabinet handles).
Expect to be very, very tired.
Phone calls, decisions, Houzz research can be all consuming. Details are endless yet required to research, regardless of how many of your kids are screaming at once. Reassure the loan officer that your kids are not actually in excruciating pain. You are just locked in a closet with no childcare on Mondays. Despite the screams, they are not being murdered, they just want to watch Butterbean’s Cafe. But back to the closing disclosures so we can buy this house.
Make a budget, with expectations for the unexpected.
Like the time the carpenter called you to ask if we knew that there were no lights of any kind in that one room. Or the other bedroom. Or the primary bedroom. Time to find an electrician and watch any disposable income disappear.
Plan to keep doing it.
Until it’s done, you are not done… even though in normal life, you are way past done. Perseverance is the key to a big time move. But the more time goes on, the more you realize there is no graceful move. Because the $8,000 that the moving company quoted would look so much better in your new kitchen. “Just do it” vibes persist.
And then, “You’ll blink, and you’ll have lived there a year.” Time will tell if our realtor’s go-to quote turns out to be true. But until then, get back to packing those boxes.
