Moving Into a New House Checklist

Moving into a new house is a process that requires a lot of work for its successful completion – hard work that needs to be started way before the arrival of the move-out day itself.

Oftentimes, the sheer number of things to do when moving into a new house can seem so overwhelming and confusing that you may not know where to begin, nor how to continue after you’ve begun the moving preparation.

And that’s exactly when a really good moving checklist can save not only the day but the entire house move for you.

Use the following checklist for moving into a new house and you should find it much easier to organize your time. Use every hour you’ve got wisely and the resulting time management will guarantee you a smooth relocation to the new house.

Here are the top 25 things to do when moving into a new house:

10 Things to do BEFORE moving into a new house

One thing is sure – you’ll stay pretty busy during the entire period of moving into a new house. And this is exactly why you’re going to need any type of help you can get along the way.

Here are the 10 most important things to do before moving into a new house.

1. Double-check your decision to move

Before you start working on your to-do list for moving into a new house, you want to make sure that the upcoming relocation is the right decision for you and your family.

You must have a good reason for wanting to move house – or reasons in most cases. However, you should still review those reasons once more since moving out is often final and there’s no way to come back if your plans don’t work out the way you need them to.

Above all, make sure the new house is 100% ready for your arrival.

Why Do People Move: 6 Good Reasons to Move House

2. Weigh your house moving options

Once you’ve made up your mind to move into a new house, the next immediate step is to decide how you’re going to approach the house move itself.

Weigh your moving options really carefully: will you trust your belongings to a reputable moving company or will you try to organize a self-move despite the numerous DIY challenges?

If you’re moving across the country and you’ve never moved house until that very moment, then you should do yourself a favor and hire one of the best interstate movers in your area. If moving locally with a handful of possessions, then moving by yourself becomes a viable option too.

Hire Movers or Do It Yourself: 10 Questions to Help You Decide

3. Secure top-rated movers

Due to a number of external factors, moving into another house can be a complicated endeavor with too much stress to cope with and too many problems to solve.

However, one excellent way to avoid all that is to hire one of the best movers in your area. But how do you find a moving company that’s reputable, experienced, and honest at the same time?

It’s easier than you think. Moving to a new house doesn’t need to be all that complicated – simply use our Moving Cost Calculator to get in touch with professional movers you can trust.

4. Hire a car shipper

One of the things to do when moving into a new house is to figure out what to do with your car if you choose to fly to the new destination (instead of driving across the country), or what to do with your second automobile if you are driving to the new home.

But you already know what you have to do, don’t you?

Get in touch with a reliable car shipping company to arrange the transport of your automobile from your current place all the way to the new house. Interested in learning the cost of shipping a car across the country?

How Much Does It Cost to Ship a Car?

5. Declutter your home

One of the best tips for moving into a new house is to declutter the home you’re leaving so that you only move the things you like and need.

It’s critical that you sort out your belongings and get rid of the ones you’ll no longer use in the foreseeable future. But why, you may ask?

Not only will you lower the transportation costs and save plenty of packing time, but you’ll also save valuable storage space in the new house. As a bonus, you can pocket some much-needed cash if you sell those unwanted items at a garage sale.

How to Declutter Your House Before Moving: 10 Decluttering Steps

6. Start packing without delay

You shouldn’t wonder what to do before moving into a new house – instead, you should start packing up your things as soon as you’ve reduced their number to their absolute minimum.

Remember that packing for a move is the most time-consuming task of them all, so one serious mistake is to underestimate the time it’ll take to protect your valuable belongings for the move.

Also, do begin to pack up your things from the rooms that are harder to sort and pack so that you don’t run out of both energy and motivation before the end of the packing marathon.

Room By Room Packing Checklist for Moving

7. Change your address

The mere fact that you’re moving into a new house means that your postal address is changing as well. But it won’t change by itself – you have to be the one to initiate the change of address procedure so that no important piece of mail gets lost along the way.

Luckily, you’ve got 4 options to change your address:

• in person at the nearest post office;
• online at a time that’s convenient for you;
• by phone, and
• by mail.

Don’t forget to change your address when moving into a new house.

How to Change Your Address When Moving

8. Transfer your utilities

You wouldn’t enjoy moving into a new house only to find out that the utilities had not been connected and that you’d be forced to start unpacking in the dark, with no running water either.

Another important task you should take care of when moving house is to transfer or change the house utilities – electricity, water and sewage, gas, cable TV, Internet, telephone, waste removal, and so on – to the new place.

So, get in touch with the corresponding utility companies and arrange the disconnection of the utilities at your current place and then their reconnection at the new house.

How to Transfer Utilities When Moving: 10 Easy Steps

9. Obtain all necessary records

A house move is usually filled to the brim with various move-related tasks that you’ll have to take care of to keep things running smoothly.

Before you move into a new house that’s located in another town or city in the same state or in a different state altogether, you’ll need to visit your family physician and obtain your and your family’s medical records.

Also, when moving with school-age children, you have to get their school records as well so that you can register your kids with another school in the destination area.

15 Things to Do Before Moving Into a New House

10. Say goodbye to your friends

Your personal checklist for moving into a new house should remind you that you shouldn’t forget about the dear friends you’re leaving behind. And how could you?

Find the time to meet up with your best friends and tell them goodbye in person. In the best-case scenario, you’ll be able to throw a moving away party and invite your pals over to have some fun before you have to move away.

Even if organizing a moving party is out of the question due to lack of time, you must do all in your power to get together with your buddies for a quick farewell.

How to Say Goodbye to Friends When You’re Moving

5 Things to do WHEN moving into a new house (Moving day)

The day of the move is the most dangerous and unpredictable period of the entire house move so you should be extra careful not to turn it into a disaster.

Here are the 5 most essential things to do when moving into a new house.

1. Start Moving day early enough

Remember that your Moving day checklist should be an inseparable part of the general checklist of moving into a new house. In fact, the way the move-out day pans out will set the tone for the entire post-relocation period.

Make sure you don’t oversleep on the day of the move. Wake up early so that you have enough time to get ready for the arrival of the team of professional movers. To make the most of that critical day, you’re recommended to go to bed early the previous day, if possible.

2. Wear appropriate clothes

On the day of the house move, remember to wear clothes that are suitable for the occasion. Avoid baggy pieces of clothing that might catch onto something and create dangerous situations. Instead, bet on your most comfortable clothes that won’t restrict your movements and will provide the comfort you need on that exhausting day.

Also, put your best pair of shoes on your feet – preferably, they should be of the closed type and have rubber anti-slip soles. In most cases, a pair of sports shoes should do just fine.

3. Finish any last-minute tasks

One of the major reasons to want to get up early on Moving day is to have the time to finish up some last-minute tasks before your movers knock on the door.

As a rule of thumb, you should only leave easy, no-brainer jobs such as packing up the essentials boxes. Bear in mind that you should have already completed the major tasks before moving into a new house.

Use your detailed Moving Checklist to check whether there’s anything left to be done. If not, then you should turn your full attention to making Moving day as safe as possible.

4. Ensure safety

As mentioned above, Moving day can be dangerous so you must make sure it is as safe as possible for everyone involved in the house move.

Remember to keep young children and pets away from the moving action. Ideally, you will ask a family member to look after the young ones while you’re busy packing your things and taking them out to the moving truck, or simply assisting the professional movers you’ve hired.

As mentioned above, wearing appropriate clothes and shoes will also contribute to the overall safety of Moving day.

5. Greet the movers

Working with top-rated professional movers will give you the peace of mind that your belongings will be taken care of and will arrive perfectly intact in the new house.

When your moving team arrives, show them around, give them specific instructions, if any, and simply let them do their work. Of course, you should still hang around to assist your movers if they have any questions or come across issues that they can’t seem to resolve on their own.

Be a good host and provide some refreshing drinks for your workers, and possibly even some snacks to keep their energy levels high enough.

Moving Day Checklist: Tips to Survive the Big Day

10 Things to do AFTER moving into a new house

You shouldn’t underestimate the post-move period as it is filled with important tasks that you can’t and shouldn’t postpone for later.

Here are the 10 most important things to do after moving into a new house.

1. Check all delivered boxes

OK, your household items are exactly the things you will need when moving into a new house. This is exactly why you should check each delivered box or piece of furniture against the detailed house inventory that you have prepared prior to packing.

Mistakes can happen during the delivery so you should be extra careful about what your movers are bringing inside the new house. If you notice that something is missing, notify the movers right away, and don’t be quick to sign the documents you are given before you make sure all issues have been resolved.

How to File a Complaint Against Movers

2. Open essentials boxes

What to do first when moving into a new house? Unbox the Open-First boxes, of course.

Open up the essentials boxes to take out those absolute necessities you have prepared for the relocation journey. Then, proceed to set up the two rooms that you will need right away – the bathroom and the bedroom.

After an exhausting day, your first and maybe only thoughts will be to take a hot shower and go to bed. So, open up the Bathroom-labeled boxes and take out the shower curtains, towels, bathrobes, and essential toiletries.

3. Inspect the new house

One of the very first things you have to do when moving into a new house is to inspect the residence thoroughly.

And even though you must have already done that prior to your decision to move into it, this time it’ll be more like double-checking that everything is as it should be.

Inspect each room carefully, and check for any leaks in the plumbing system, most often dripping faucets. Locate the main water valve and the fuse box and make sure they are in working order.

Check the front yard, the backyard, and the immediate perimeter around the house for any signs of trouble.

4. Set up the appliances

If you’ve decided to move some of the large household appliances as well, now should be the time to set them up for proper usage.

It’s rarely worth moving your fridge, freezer, stove, washer, or dryer to another part of the country due to the exceedingly high transportation costs. And yet, you may have a good reason to move some of your appliances so it’s time to reconnect them properly.

Once you position the refrigerator on its final spot, leave it be at least 3 hours before you plug it in and turn it on to avoid any type of internal damage.

5. Clean the new house

Unless you’re moving into a brand-new house that’s squeaky clean, consider cleaning the entire place to turn it into a fresh and welcoming home.

Needless to say, the amount of effort you put into that cleaning task will depend on the actual condition of the house. Keep in mind that the cleaning job could easily become much more complicated if the previous owners or renters had a dog or a cat.

In some cases, it may be better to pay for professional cleaning services than to try to do it all by yourself.

6. Childproof the house

If you’ve just moved into a new house with a baby or a toddler, then one critical task that you must do as soon as possible is to childproof the entire house so that it’s perfectly safe for your child.

Begin the childproofing process from the nursery room – the place where your young son or daughter will spend the most time. Remove everything from the crib but a fitted mattress sheet, secure the changing table, and mount window guards and cordless blinds on the windows.

Then, babyproof the bathroom, eliminating all obvious and not-so-obvious dangers. The kitchen and the living room should be the last rooms to make safe for your young child.

How to Babyproof Your House After Moving: 5 Easy Steps

7. Take care of your pets

When moving with pets to a new house, you have to make sure they are very safe and relatively calm before you can continue working on your new house moving checklist.

Right after the move, your dog or cat might exhibit characteristic signs of separation anxiety so you should monitor their behavior carefully and react adequately to any worrisome changes.

Keep your cat indoors for the first several days but provide them with all the comforts they may need. If the house has a fenced backyard, you can let your dog play there but take all necessary measures not to let them escape.

How to Help a Dog Adjust to a New Home After Moving

Moving With Cats to a New Home

8. Start unpacking, little by little

By now you should have already unpacked the essentials boxes and some of the bathroom- and bedroom-labeled containers. But what about the rest of the cardboard boxes that still contain your valuable possessions?

Begin the unpacking process as soon as you find the time to do so. The good news is that, unlike the job of packing for a move, unpacking can be stretched over time since there’s no deadline (Moving day) to keep you stressed out.

To make unpacking more efficient, keep discarding (recycling) the packing materials you no longer need.

Follow this room-by-room unpacking checklist for maximum efficiency.

How to Unpack After Moving: Room by Room Unpacking Checklist

9. Register your car

Moving into a new house that’s located in another state means that you’ll also need to register your vehicle in that destination state. It’s a post-relocation task that you shouldn’t forget to do since you can get fined if you don’t.

Just visit your local DMV office and register your car in the new state. You may also need to transfer your driver’s license as well. While some states offer as many as 30 days to register an out-of-state vehicle, others give only 10 days so you shouldn’t postpone that task too much.

How to Register a Car in Another State After Moving

10. Say Hi to your neighbors

Depending on the underlying reason to move house, moving into a new house may or may not be an exciting new experience for you.

But one thing you can be sure of is that you’ll soon find yourself in a perfectly unfamiliar environment which will coincide with the start of the post-move adaptation period.

To speed up the acclimatization process, you should consider getting to know the people who live around you – in that case, your neighbors. The thing is that you never know – your future best friend may happen to live next door, just across your own yard.

Just be brave enough to go and say Hi to your new neighbors after moving into a new house.

21 Things to Do After Moving Into a New House