| Tip for your real estate clients

As a real estate agent, your clients will ask you for advice on numerous topics that do not directly relate to your service. One of the common ones is advice on the actual moving house process.

Should we hire a moving company or get our friends and family to help?

This question will really depend on the circumstance of the family in question. Everyone has different deadlines, different work hours, different physical abilities and different budgets.

There are various house moving services that exist, as a realtor you should make sure you are familiar with these services and get to know the companies in your area so you can refer them when needed. You will seem less professional if you can’t name any.

Packing companies

There are companies who will send packers to help you pack up your possessions into boxes for you and also help you unpack once you move, however, they usually do not physically help you move it all to the next location. They will expertly wrap, pack and label all your boxes for you to ensure safe and organised transit.

Moving companies

A moving company provides a van or a truck and a couple of staff to physically move all your furniture and boxes to the next location. You need to have everything ready before they arrive.

Temporary storage companies

A temporary storage company may be required if the next house is not ready for everything to be delivered.

Here are 5 questions you can ask the seller to help them decide what is best for them.

1. Timeline for moving house

How soon until the sellers have to move out? If your buyer is expecting to come by in 2 days for a walk-through inspection, it is unlikely they will be able to pack up an entire house in time, even with friends helping. If they have a few weeks to do it, doing it themselves should be achievable, if it is in a hurry, professional home movers are a must, this includes hiring a packing company to box up all your belongings.

2. Logistics of moving house

How far away is the new house they are moving to? Is it ready for them to move in? If it isn’t ready for them, they will have to put their furniture and some belongings into temporary storage. These factors will also help make the decision.

3. Effort involved in moving house

If the sellers work full-time, they might struggle to pack up themselves during week nights or doing it all on the weekend. Sellers might underestimate how much stuff they actually own.

4. Moving house is stressful

Make sure the seller understands how stressful moving house can be, even for the happiest of families. The less the seller does themselves or has to worry about, the better. Professionals can take a lot of the stress away, and won’t test any friendships.

5. Financial costs of moving house

Hiring house packers or a moving company is definitely more expensive than getting your friends and family to do it for you. The stress-free benefits will usually outweigh the cost burden. It is much relaxing to simply point and direct the packing and moving staff around than to do it yourself. Again some people might be in the perfect situation where they can do it all themselves slowly over time. It’s best to let them decide for themselves.

Verdict

In the end, it is really up to the seller whether they will do this themselves or hire a professional, but most real estate agents will agree that hiring a professional will be worth the price in terms of effort and sanity saved. If you can offer some sound advice on this to your customers, you will sound more professional and appear more valuable to the client. After they have moved, follow up and find out how their experiences went so you can draw your own conclusions and give more advice to sellers in the future.

photo credit: Like a puzzle via photopin (license)

RADIUS SUBURB

Real Estate List Provider are an easy and effective way to find more real estate listings. Through our Radius Suburb tool you can gain access to any suburb in Australia for an extremely cost-effective prospecting and real estate marketing lead solution. Radius Suburb data is washed against the ‘Do Not Call’ list every 21 days so you can be assured the information is accurate and useful. Find out more about gaining access to Radius Suburb here. It’s the perfect tool showing real estate agents how to get real estate listings.

Tip for your real estate clients: DIY or Pro Movers?