Sacramento Real Estate Blog

This is part three of a three part series on how to make a move into a new place easier. So far we have covered various ideas of getting to know your neighbors, joining a group, walking around downtown and so on. Today we’re going to conclude the series with some of my favorite tips. These are the tips I learned from moving four times in eight years. (Seriously, I’m done.)

Join the Local Library

The library is usually my first real connection with a neighborhood. In the past I have joked that it’s because if I don’t come back in three weeks at least someone will care and will come looking for me. But of course, that’s a joke. A library is a good place to join in your first few weeks. Usually, they verify you actually live in the home you say you do. So if you’re not getting mail there yet, you can take your mortgage statement or your loan documents like the HUD-1 to prove that you live there. The library is also free and if you have kids in your home it’s a great way to keep them occupied with something to do.

Another reason for heading to the library early in the move is that it has internet access before you might have it in your new home. Many people I know are lost without internet. I see the library as a place you get to connect - online, in the community, and so on. Local libraries are also places where local events are advertised, which is another good way to get your kids involved in activities in the new place.

Talk to the Grocery Clerks

If there’s something you need in your new neighborhood, another source of information is the nearest grocery store. Usually the best one for such a purpose is the neighborhood store. When we first moved to Pollock Pines, everyone we spoke with was very eager to tell us about where everything was in town. In fact, we eventually got so tired of it that we stopped telling people we were new. And that was just from talking to people at Safeway. Imagine if you were talking to someone at the neighborhood store. (Eventually the clerks at Safeway had to let us go because there were other people in line, but it is a small town, so they joined in as well!)

Identify a good source of information about where to get what and he’s worth his weight in gold. Also, nothing beats being recognised in a new neighborhood. It makes you feel like you belong, like you’ve lived there all your life. And that makes you feel pretty welcome in a place where you’ve just unpacked your boxes.

Offer to Help a Neighbor

As far as belonging to a place goes, nothing will make you feel more needed than just the plain old fashioned notion of helping someone out. It costs nothing and it can make you feel useful and connected. For example, if you see your next door neighbor working on something in the yard and know how to fix it, offer to help. Of course, this goes without saying to some helpful souls out there, but as a new homebuyer it can be an immense sense of relief and you can make some friends in the process.

Don’t Think it Will All Get Done Right Now!

Moving is a huge process. From personal experience, I’ve noticed that it is only after a year of living in a new home that you finally begin to settle down. For the first year, you mostly focus on getting things where they should go and the extra knick-knacks remain stowed away in some corner, still in boxes with the labeling on. Sometimes you find them in closets, hidden away and only saying “Den” or “Downstairs Bedroom.” Every home isn’t perfect. Well, let’s just say no home is perfect to the homebuyer. There have be repairs or remodeling to make it fit you. For example, our hallway closet was a mess until just last month when we put in new shelves and now I finally feel organized. And it’s been more than a year since we moved here.

Don’t think your life will be perfectly organized in the first few months of moving. Getting old things to fit into a new home can be hard. Sometimes you have to get the new home to fit you. This involves going through old stuff and getting rid of a lot. It can be unnerving and sometimes overwhelming. So don’t expect perfection right away.

Enjoy the Unfinished Parts of Living in a New Home

Remember the new home commercials? Where they show the happy homeowners sitting together sipping a glass of wine as unpacked labeled boxes lie around them? How can they be so happy you wonder when there is so much work to be done? So much stuff to put away? So many boxes to recycle? The secret is this: learn to live with it. Learn to enjoy it. If everything isn’t going to get done right away and life is going to be a little messy for a while, learn to enjoy it in spite of the “mess.”

This is the time to remember how excited you were with the idea of buying a new home and moving. try to recall that. And now you’re here. So enjoy being here. I think the problem a lot of the times is that we spend too much time wanting to be other than where we are. This is no more true than when we move into a new home. We miss the certainty of knowing where everything is, we spend way more time looking for cookware than actually cooking, and much more time looking for clothes than usual. Everything seems to be other than where it should be. Living out of boxes is hard and we can’t wait to have everything in its proper place and living an ordinary - even boring - life. But that’s the beauty of moving! It forces you to take a back seat for a while. And it can be enjoyable if you let it.

And that concludes our series on making the move into a new home easier. If you have experiences or tips regarding this, please write to us. And we’ll try and incorporate them into our posts. Happy Moving, new home buyers! Of course, if you would like to be a happy home buyer, our agents are only a phone call away!