SAVING MONEY TO MOVE HOUSE

You’ll have heard me talk about wanting to move house a fair few times recently, and although it’s something I would absolutely love to do RIGHT NOW, the cost of moving house is a bit of barrier for me right now. I’ve had my house for just over 2 years now (I actually moved in 2 years ago today!), and for the first year/ year and a half, I didn’t manage to save any money at all. I was brought up on the principal that you need to save a little pot of money at all times, ready for any emergency or unexpected bill that might crop up. Having spent pretty much all of my savings on renovating and furnishing my house, it scared me a bit to not have what I thought was a good amount in my savings account.

With that fear in the back of my mind for a while, I set up a standing order from my current account to my ISA savings account for £25 month, which I know isn’t a lot of money, but it meant that I was saving something every single month, not just when I had a bit left over from payday. I set the standing order up so that it left my current account on payday, so I didn’t have to see the money go out when I was struggling later on in the month. I kept it at £25 a month for about 5 months, when I realised, that actually, I could afford to save a bit more each month, so I upped it to £50 a month. I got some money from my very generous family for Christmas and paid it into my savings account, I didn’t even pay it into my current account, I didn’t want the temptation! It was technically free money, so I couldn’t miss it from my current account, and it meant that I reached my savings target for the end of the year. (for transparency purposes, my savings target by the end of 2017 was £2000, and I’ll explain why that was my target in a second)

I already know the rough costs of buying a house, with it only being about 2 years ago, I luckily still have the paperwork and costings written down in one of my many document folders. But I’ve never sold a house before, so that means a lot more research on the fees that come with selling a house. I thought I’d share some of the information I’ve found from my searches.

How to move house:

 

BUYING A HOUSE (excluding deposit):

My legal/ solicitor fees were around £900

Searches were around £250

The valuation was around £150

My Dad did the basic survey so this didn’t cost me anything, but would be around £250

Transferring your money (deposit) cost around £40

I didn’t need to pay for a moving van, we packed everything up in our cars and my Dads van but this can be quite expensive!

Total: £1590

 

SELLING A HOUSE

Estate Agent fees – depending on which you use, it can be between 1% and 3% property price. There are the new online Estate Agents who don’t charge this commission and have a set price for different packages so it’s definitely worth looking around and researching

If the commission was 1% I would need to pay around £850, 3% would be £2550 so it can be quite a large expense! I’ve found an online Estate Agent with fees of £390 as a basic package, so I’m planning on going with that.

Between £50 and £120 for an EPC (energy performance certificate)

Solicitors fees – from my research it can be around £500 on top of the buying fees, but this obviously differs between firms.

Total: £940 (based on the lower options)

 

Based on those figures, I would need to have around £2530 in my savings to be able to move house. I’ve managed to save around £150 more since January, which makes my current total around £2150, only £380 to go, which if I stuck to my £50 savings a month, would mean I’m ready to move house in October, which is 8 months from now. Ideally, I’d want to move before then, so I need to up my monthly saving amount so I can move house before then!

I hope this post helps anyone else in the same boat as me. I live alone, so there’s no one to split the saving burden with… wish me luck!