Congratulations on buying your new home! Now the search is over, it’s time to get everyone ready to move in.
"The biggest challenge of buying a new home ― once the adrenaline flow of finding a new home is gone ― is to mentally prepare for the move from the familiar, to the new" says, Shaun Massie, Director of mobilelender.com.au
How to prepare you and your loved ones for moving house
We all have different appetites for change. Moving house is at the top of the list of life stressors in Australia. Facing into change ― like moving into a new home ― may invite an entire smorgasbord of emotions to come into play leading up to a life changing event.
If you’re a family with children, ideally you’ve already brought everyone along on the house hunting adventure.
Depending on how many weekends you’ve invested in viewing open houses, the tedium of house hunting may have set in for your children.
Recent house buyer Bruce Pearce, shared that buying their new home was a huge relief for their family. It meant weekends were finally ‘open for inspection’ free.
“The kids just wanted to start packing their boxes. They realised that they were no longer having to be dragged from house to house. It was now time to move in,” says recent home buyer Bruce Pearce.
In the Pearce family’s case, the location was still within their community. Moving to an unfamiliar community, with new neighbours and new schools, can be a little more daunting.
Here are some tips to help you, and help support your loved ones to manage the change well.
Provide opportunities for decision making
Start conversations with partners and children early. If you have an idea of the location you want to move to, highlight the positives of the area and plan visits so it starts feeling familiar, and safe.
Talk through the reasons for moving house, and the benefits for everyone involved. Discuss concerns early. Encourage and support children to work through solutions to any challenges they’re worried about, in moving house.
Influence enthusiasm gently
Don’t over engineer the benefits of moving. Keep it real. Remember, not everyone shares your appetite for change. Where an opportunity arises to highlight benefits, take it, but don’t force it.
Keep everyone informed
If a change of school is likely, find out as much as you can about the school. If there is an annual school event, like a fair, plan to go along. If the playground is open to the public after hours, pop in for a play to break up house-hunting-tedium.
Join local social media communities, such as the local Chamber of Commerce or tourism pages. Plan to attend events, local attractions or recreational activities that may be of interest to you and your loved ones.
Keep everyone involved
Use moving activities, such as packing boxes, as mini-adventures. Suggest that everyone finds items they no longer want or need, and come up with ways to sell them to make extra pocket money, or gift to other people and charities in need. Naturally, depending on age, supervision may be required. Encourage choices that are mutually beneficial.
Urge everyone to label their packed boxes. This helps visualise the change through items that are familiar and valued, in a new setting.
Involve everyone in decorating choices from deciding where to put the television, to the colour of bedroom walls.
Bribery when moving house is okay
There are times when offering harmless incentives are perfectly okay for the psychological health of everyone involved in the move.
Setting up the X-Box, PlayStation, basketball hoop or trampoline before anything else is a perfectly acceptable way of keeping everyone happy. Whatever it takes, really…