One of the main considerations of selling your home and buying another is of course, how much will it cost?
Let’s talk about moving in the current year of 2020. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine, New Jersey has been a busy place in the real estate market. Interest rates are very low and house prices went up by 10.1% (Zebra, 2020) which means you can save some money making the MOVE this year than you would have last year. Let’s go through what costs you will have to make the big MOVE.
First, you need the down payment for your home. This is usually a minimum of 5% the cost of the house you are buying. Once you put down that money, you will have mortgage closing costs.
These are fees for the expenses that are used to finalize a mortgage (Kearns, 2019). In New Jersey, closing costs are typically 2-3% of the purchase price. There are a couple of property related fees as well, known as the appraisal fee and home inspection. The appraisal is where you hire a professional to determine the value of your property. This way, when you need a loan, the lender can verify how much you need which will cost between $300-400. Lenders also usually require a home inspection that costs about $300-500 (Kearns, 2019). This is to make sure your house is in good shape before the bank allows you to borrow money to purchase your new house. Following these fees, you can also expect to pay some assortment of loan related ones such as an application fee or attorney fee which are different for everyone.
Now that we got the technical costs covered, let’s look at the physical MOVE. Of course, the more local your MOVE is, the cheaper the mover’s price will be. For example, a MOVE to a 1 bedroom across town that will take 3-5 hours to get the furniture in, it only costs about $200-500. For a family MOVE of 4 bedrooms, it can take 10 or more hours for a total cost of $800-2,000. To MOVE locally (under 100 miles), movers typically charge $80-100 per hour with an extra fee of $25-50 per additional movers. If you are looking to MOVE further (over 100 miles), it can range from around $2,000 up to $5,000. Extra fees for an interstate MOVE are $0.50 per pound (Zillow, 2020). But wait- we aren’t done yet. Another factor of moving is renting a storage unit. Not everyone needs to do this, but in the case that you close on your house before you can move into the next, you probably need to put your furniture in a storage unit. For a small unit, it is around $50 a month, whereas a larger one is $300-400 (Zillow).
Okay, deep breath. That’s it on the breakdown of the main costs of buying and selling a house. After reading about the details of moving -it may seem like a lot- but that’s why MOVE or IMPROVE is here to help! Call our realtor, Jacki Venezio, today for more information on getting your MOVE started!
