We moved house right at the peak of the first wave of COVID-19 in April. For a time it was a will we, won’t we situation. The world was in lockdown and everything that could still happen was happening at a snail’s pace. We were eager to start making our new house a home even if moving house during Covid-19 seemed like a crazy idea.
During the build-up to our house move, people questioned ‘why not wait until THIS THING has all blown over’. Now I am glad we did not listen and instead pushed forward. This thing (COVID-19) doesn’t look to be going away quickly and we may be living in this state of lockdown limbo for some time to come. We had spent a long time sorting through our possessions deciding what to take with us, what to sell and what needed to be disposed of and we were more than ready to make our move. Therefore if you are thinking of moving house during COVID-19 and you are able to, we’d say go for it, otherwise, you may be waiting quite some time.
How Much Can I Borrow?
The first thing you need to do is find out how much you can borrow via a mortgage. This is assessed based on your income, the deposit you have and/or any schemes available to you that you choose to use i.e. the Help To Buy Scheme. We all envisage the dream house we want to live in. However, sometimes being able to but it is just not possible. Therefore by doing the sums at the beginning it ensures that we do not set our hearts on somewhere which is simply not doable monetary wise.
One quick and easy option is to use Mortgage Calculator UK. Simply enter how much you would like to borrow, a rough APR and over how many years you would like to take the mortgage out for. This produces monthly figures for both repayment and interest-only mortgages. Therefore, allowing you to rule out some properties and potentially pursue others. Also until March 2021, you can take advantage of the Government’s Stamp Duty holiday. Applicable if you are not buying a second home and the one you are buying is less than £500,000. If so, this means you may have some extra cash to put towards your deposit.
However, it is important to note that in these unprecedented times, some jobs are less stable than others because of the virus. Mortgage lenders will look at this before committing to lending. Therefore, if there is even a small chance COVID-19 may affect your employment, you need to consider this at the very early stages of moving house. After all the mortgage is a secured loan against your home which may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments.
How Can I Do Home Viewings?
During the first lockdown the rules where very clear – stay at home. Therefore physically viewing a property was impossible. The Government have however announced that the UK housing market is to stay open during the second lockdown. This is of course to be done with certain measures in place. This is to ensure buyers, sellers and estate agents stay as safe as possible.
Therefore, if you spot a house you want to view contact the relevant estate agents to find out the next steps. This initially may be a virtual viewing. This is a great way of seeing if the property has everything that you require it to have. For us, it was a dedicated office space or a spare bedroom we could turn into an office. This has been vital especially as Vicky is expected to work from home for the foreseeable future. Together with a playroom that we could shut the door on every night to hide away the kid’s carnage.
If you like what you see on the computer screen then the next step is to actually visit the property. This will usually involve the current owners vacating for the duration of your visit. It also means you and the estate agent showing you around wearing masks and adhering to social distancing guidelines. Of course, you are advised to sanitise your hands before entering and not to touch anything while in the property. Hopefully, like us, you will know straight away when you have found ‘the one’. Meaning your search doesn’t take too long.
How Will The Legal Stuff Be Carried Out?
Even though a number of people who usually work in offices are now working from home, their work of course continues. When we bought our house our solicitor worked as hard as possible to ensure we could move. However, everything happened a little more slowly than pre-COVID-19 and you need to prepare yourself for that. This was because he didn’t have a secretary or office junior on hand. Therefore he had to do everything himself which took more time, but it got done and that’s the main thing.
Other organisations involved in the housing market are also in the same boat. However, we’re sure you agree that their safety is paramount. Even though we were super eager to move, we had to be patient. The mortgage valuer could only visit a certain number of properties per day for example. This meant we had to wait longer than normal to find out if our new house was worth at least what we were asking to borrow. This for us was the most nerve-wracking part of the whole process.
If you are moving into a new build property, as we did, it will need to be signed off by NHBC (National House Building Council). Having an NHBC certificate is vital. The Buildmark certificate provides warranty and insurance protection to newly built or converted homes. This means if something is structurally wrong with your property it will be corrected in line with the policy. Again depending on the number of NHBC inspectors available and the number of properties to visit, in these COVID-19 times delay may happen.
Will I Actually Be Able To Move?
Now, this was the major hurdle we had to get over. Moving house during COVID-19 threw up this one major issue. As we were in full lockdown the removals company we had lined up to use to move us had closed down. Therefore, after weeks if not months of living surrounded by cardboard boxes it looked like our dream of moving into our forever home was going to be scuppered when we were so close.
Luckily for us, there was no chain involved. We were part exchanging our house with the builders who had built our new house. Therefore, no one was really pushing us to move. This meant we could work at the pace dictated by the legal process rather than our buyers. Obviously, the builders of our new house wanted us to move as soon as possible. After all, they wanted our cash. However, they fully understood our predicament.
There was no way we could move all of our worldly possessions, two kids and two cats in the backs of our cars. Even if we had hired a van, physically moving our large pieces of furniture while keeping an eye on the little ones was just not possible. However, it was in fact our builders who found us a removal company who were still operating. It looks like during Lockdown 2.0 removals companies are allowed to continue to work. Obviously, this is with certain procedures in place and of course observing social distancing rules. Therefore, this should not be as much of a worry as it was for us during the original lockdown.
If you do decide to move during COVID-19 you may find it helpful to use an online change of address service. New technology created by SlothMove.com helps home movers save up to 7 hours of time and lets you update your address online across hundreds of accounts.
Conclusion
We hope this has helped you if you are considering moving home during COVID-19 but are unsure as to whether you will be able to. We are living proof it is possible. Obviously, there will be less face to face meetings and things will possibly take longer than pre-COVID-19. However, the housing market is still open and it is completely possible.
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