According to the Smoove Home Movers Report for the beginning of 2023, nine out of ten people in the UK find moving home stressful. The good news, however, is that the report does not highlight the move itself as contributing to the stress.
For many years, moving companies have peddled the mantra that ‘moving is one of the most stressful things people can do’. The implication being that customers need reliable moving companies to help reduce that stress. But that seems to be misunderstanding the situation. Although a bad move would definitely contribute to the stress already felt, most of the stress comes from other parts of the moving process, not what happens on moving day.
The report says for home movers, the length of time required to complete the process (40%), the lack of certainty (34%), and the wait for exchange and completion dates to be finalised (33%) are some of the main sources of anxiety. These findings mirror additional data from Smoove’s Home Movers Report which identifies extended wait times and uncertainty as ubiquitous features of the moving process. The average amount of time between instruction and completion remains lengthy at over five months (153 days), while over a third (34%) of property transactions fell through in the year to July 2022.
Although customers consider moving home to be expensive, it’s not the moving companies who are the culprits. Almost two-thirds (65%) of movers said that moving home had been more expensive than they had expected. Aside from the deposit, stamp duty, and estate agency fees, some of the biggest costs are solicitor fees (46%), buying new furniture (44%), and mortgage product fees (32%). When funding a move, almost two-thirds (64%) of people use savings, over a third (36%) rely on equity raised from selling their current property, while one-fifth turn to the Bank of Mum and Dad (20%). The number of people dependent on financial support from their parents to purchase their home increases among first time buyers to over a third (37%), according to research from YouGov.
But the stress and expense of moving home, largely caused by other elements of the process, nevertheless hits moving companies hard ...