House Hacking: Tips for Moving (Every Year)

One challenge that house hackers face, and is one of the main turn-offs to house hacking - is moving.

 Moving every year, or even every 2 years for that matter - just isn't very appealing to most people

Today we are going to talk about, some cost-effective and cost efficient strategies, that we've learned over the years - such as preparing to move, cleaning processes, and structuring your moving timelines.

So, the moving prep:

We'll start with minimizing clutter: 

Before packing, start decluttering your stuff. You'll likely want to do this anyways, for when you begin to show your house hacks to potential tenants.

Sell, donate, or throw out stuff you no longer need or use. Over the years, probably by the time you're on your 2nd or 3rd house hack, you'll find stuff you've moved over and over, thinking you'll use - and never even took out of the box.

And trust me on this one - START PACKING EARLY. 

LAst year we were just moving across the street and figured "hm, maybe we can just carry things over without boxes, and with 3 or 4 people it'll be so simple"

NO. It sucked. What we started doing this year, is pack and clean one room per day until we close and move into our new place. It has been a gamechanger on our backs, and on our stress.

Still allows us time for work, friends, family, events, etc - and we're still going to be ready to go come closing day. This is arguably the biggest tip I have for you here. Save yourself some gray hairs and time and spread this whole thing out - you will thank yourself I promise you.

Reducing the number of items you move will save time, effort, and potentially money on moving costs - if you decide to hire a moving company. Which is.. not very cost efficient

But anyways, 

Pack Smartly:

Optimize your packing by using suitcases, duffel bags, and reusable containers you already have.

It would be worth the investment to hop on Amazon, or even go to your local UPS store - and buy a bunch of re-usable boxes, tubs, bags - to help save on buying those flimsy cardboard boxes, that you'd otherwise need to buy every single year.

Going back to hiring movers - yes, of course they're going to be the most time-efficient option for you, if you have the money to pay for one

But if you didn't want to pay for movers, where some are $1,000 or more - instead, you could consider asking friends and family to help.

We've been fortunate enough to have friends and family help over the years, and on some occasions, we've paid for coffee, breakfast, lunch, AND dinner. It might cost you $100 or more, but you get the same result as you would paying $1,000!

Now let's talk about some cleaning hacks:

First off, it's essential to leave your property clean and well-maintained for the incoming tenants. 

I cannot stress this enough - how you leave your property, is the first impression and the standard of condition, you will leave your tenants.

If you leave it super nice, they'll likely keep it that way.

If it smells, carpets are matted down, floors are sticky - whatever it is, will give the idea to your tenants that "this is how it should be".

So here's how you can efficiently handle the cleaning process:

General Clean Before Move-Out:

Prior to leaving for your next property, as you are cleaning - do a general clean of the place.

vacuum, clean surfaces, wipe down countertops, dust fans and vents - the stuff you see or the easy stuff. 

This will save time if you're cleaning as you pack - and make it less of having another "task" towards the end of moving. This is step 1

Step 2:

Hire Cleaning Services that charge by the hour!!

This is a big one we've learned over the years.

To save time and money, hire a cleaning service that charges by the hour to do a final DEEP clean.

In the cupboards and drawers, pull out and clean behind appliances, basically the hard stuff you didn't do. 

This way, you only pay for the actual cleaning hours, avoiding minimum fees and the cost of hiring a company for the entire cleaning process. The cost difference between having them clean the entire place, and just the stuff leftover you didn't do, could be in the hundreds.

Of course, again, you can pay for the entire clean to save time - but we're talking about hackin this stuff! 

With that, the last thing I've got for ya and maybe the hardest to nail down - is timing your move

First tip:

Close a Month Before tenants move in.

Aim to close on your next house hack at least a month before the tenant move-in date. 

Example: 

We close on our next place here towards the end of August, and tenants move into our current place on October 1.

This little 30 day buffer period gives you much more time to pack, move, clean, and address any issues with the place before tenants move in.

This is so clutch trust me. There is almost a 100% success rate you're going to scrap walls when moving furniture, or just find an issue with SOMETHING in general.

We like making house hacking as seamless and efficient as possible on all corners - you don't want to get stuck moving out 3 or 4 days before tenants move in with a bunch of stuff left to do.

As we wrap this up here - while moving is not fun, it's kind of stressful, and has a lot of moving parts to it - these have been huge little moving hacks over the years that make this whole house hacking process incredibly less crappy for us