We moved house!

Hi everyone, this is the first of a series of “catching up” posts. We’ve been quiet on our end despite quite a few things happening in the last months. First things first: we moved house!

The reason

We wanted to leave the previous flat for quite some time, for a series of reasons. First of all, we wanted to move from a studio flat to a one bed. But also, we wanted to leave the flat because of the noise (it faced a main road, with a bis stop right below the windows) and the fact that the entrance was on a cul-de-sac which wasn’t exactly nice. We had to extend the stay there because the 12 months rent would have ended on a busy time for us, but we gave the notice as soon as we could.

The hunt

We had two months to find a flat after we gave the notice. This is a strange period of time as some agents only require one month, so we struggled the very first days to find something suitable. We used Nestoria (yes, of course, I work there!) as primary search tool, as well as Globrix and Gumtree. I also took some time to go around on my bicycle on a nice day to “inspect” potential areas where we thought we could have moved to, particularly old Shoreditch, So-Da, South Hackney and London Fields.

We eventually decided for the third flat we saw, after one we didn’t particularly like and one we did but seemed a bit dodgy, as it was going to be with a private landlord, who we had not met, who would have had to “approve” us (hello?!). We found the flat through the agent’s website, after we noticed that their flats were on average, nicer than the others.

We managed to spend pretty much what we were paying before, and we have one additional room, without moving too far away (from Bethnal Green to Stepney Green).

The move

We had quite a few things we had to move from the old flat to the new one. On top of “the usual” clothes, kitchen stuff and books, we had to carry (well, we wanted to) a few items of furniture. We left the bed behind (and eventually handed it over to my cousin) because the landlord didn’t want to get rid of the one that was (and still is) here, but brought with us a sofa-bed, a bookshelf (adapted and used as a wardrobe), another bookshelf and a cd-dvd tower. This meant that we had to dismount all these items first (they’re all from Ikea), and then re-assemble them once on the new flat. I know, not ideal, but at the end of the day it’s stuff we “need”.

Last time we moved we had far fewer items to carry with us, and eventually moved on foot (distance was much smaller then) in an afternoon or so. This time, we hired a small van from Sixt (we’ve used them in the past, in the UK and abroad, and we’ve always been happy with them) for a day and had 4 or 5 journeys to move everything.

The flat

Well, first of all it’s a one bedroom flat, which is an improvement from the previous flat. It’s on a nice rear alley, so it’s much more quiet than the previous one (we actually get to sleep nicely now!), in a 19th century building. It’s not a mansion, of course, nor it is a fantastic flat in itself: the kitchen is smaller than it seemed initially, and there’s not much storage space. But it’s got two separate rooms, which is what we wanted both for ourselves and for having guests without them being in the same room where we sleep all the time.

We were very lucky in finding nice tenants moving out: they helped us a lot in getting utilities sorted out, finding out which items of furniture were going to stay, they had us around for tea as well!

What we learnt from all this

One of the most important things we have now learnt is the fewer things you carry with you, the easier the move. We had to buy items of furniture for the previous flat, and this of course gets in the way when you move. Try to look for furnished flats, and if you really can’t avoid buying furniture, try to arrange for it to be left behind (either sold or just left) in the flat you’re moving out of. Unfortunately, we could not do this as the flat was not let yet when we moved out, and we had to leave it as we found it. Lame, I know.

Another thing, try to avoid moving around Christmas. We did so because we wanted to move out as soon as possible while still respecting the contract, but we also knew we were going to be home in Italy for some 10 days. This made us want to secure a flat before we went, putting additional pressure on us for a task that is already delicate in itself.

One of the things we will look for in the next flat is a shorter contract. You don’t know if a flat is ideal for you until you move in, and if it’s not ideal and you are on a long term contract this can be a serious problem. Now, we’re now on a 14 months contract (18 months really, but it ends up being 12+2) and if we want to move out before that term we need to make sure we find new tenants. Not ideal.

What about you? Do you have any “moving” story you would like to share with us? Please do so by leaving us a comment!