What are the average costs of moving home?

[tiredemma]

I finally completed my Nursing Degree last summer and landed a perfect job straight away.
I earned a bare pittance in every job before my course and in part time work throughout my course, so now that I have a FT job, we have some (quite a bit) of 'extra' (ie- cash that we are not used to having) every month.

We desperately want to move to a nicer area with better secondary schools (ds1 is 10 this year). I know that this will mean a larger mortgage, so larger outgoings each month- but we are confused with what the actual costs of moving home will be??

In the house that we are currently in we were first time buyers so have never had any experience of dealing with Estate Agents etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

Ahem, depends a lot.
This page suggests at least £10k.

Stuff that gets listed frequently:

Definite expenses:
Soliciter searches & time: £500-£2000.
Stamp Duty (0-4% of purchase price)
Phone calls, contact stuff about your new addy
Estate Agent: takes 0.5%-4% of your sale price (typically about 2.5%, I think). Tips.

Quite possible expenses:
Arrangement fee for new mortgage: typically about £900 I think.
Packing materials
Removal firm: £500-£3000, depending on level of service
New school costs (uniform)

Not so obvious:
Different transport costs from new area
Costs to modify new home/renovate it
Many misc. new things, that you need in a different home

Have a look here - the main costs will be stamp duty (rate depends on how much you pay for your house), estate agents fees (around 1.5 - 2% of the sale price of your house) and lawyers fees. So all of these are in the £ thousands.

Then there are miscellaneous other things, like the removal firm, preparing a HIP, getting a survey done on the house you are trying to buy etc etc. These are £ hundreds.

I would get an estate agent round to value your house, then you can work out roughly how much his fees will be. Then ring a couple of law firms to ask over the phone how much their conveyancing costs. Then work out roughly how much stamp duty you'll pay on your new house.

It all adds up to a shocking amount of money (ballpark figure would be £15,000 to £20,000 depending on the kind of house you are buying).

We had a v helpful Independent Financial Adviser, who as well as finding us a great mortgage also helped us calculate the costs of moving, which was very helpful of him. If you are in the Herts / Beds area I'll let you know his details!

Is this clear as mud or does it help?! We have just been through this, so do shout!

Great list above for financial costs.

Don't underestimate the stress and frustration of trying to sell your home and buy another one; it's time consuming and disruptive and downright AAAARRRRRGGGGGH!

Cross-posted, but same useful link!

Oh, since you mentioned about estate agents, I would strongly recommend negotiating with them about their commission - we had three agents round, and all of them dropped the initial commission percentage as soon as we said "erm" or "well, we had x round and they are a bit cheaper". It really wasn't very difficult to get them to reduce their commission!

at £10K! Think we'll be renting for a wee bit longer...