Hello everyone!

Today I will talk about a friend who moved from an apartment to a house. As he has experienced several common moving issues. Nothing too big but still, I hope through sharing his story, I could help others who may move in the near future.

First a bit about the thumbnail picture, as said the friend lived in an apartment on the first floor, with 1 neighbor above and 1 neighbor below. The neighbor above had a cat which apparently sommetimes was watching my friend through the rails from the terrace upstairs. As it looked funny, I thought to take a picture of the cat. I didn't take pictures of my friend's apartment to respect his privacy.

How it started

Several months ago, my friend saw a particular house on a website which lists houses for sale. As he wasn't really looking but still keeping an eye on the trends, he decided to go and check out the house. As he thought it was fairly well priced, he decided to go for it and ended up being the highest bidder. Ofcourse that's just the stat of the story as he had to visit a bank to get a loan.

Probably you know how banks are, they all want to get their hands on your money like real sharks hunting for money. He visited a couple of banks of which he received several offers. Slowly he could leverage the information from one bank to another bank to get better prices.

Tip
Visit multiple banks when looking for a loan. Not just once, but go back afterwards when you had a better offer somewhere else. Often they will lower their prices. Their initial prices aren't their best ones!

After several weeks of negotiating, he decided he had a good offer and contacted the particular bank that he would like to work with them. After a couple of days, he received the papers which he had to sign. After reading these carefully, he had some remarks and figured out that not all the information was as agreed on the phone (in the disadvantage of my friend). After calling the bank, there was indeed been a mistake and the bank corrected it and sent the contract over once again.

Tip
Read every contract you have to sign carefully through! If you don't understand something, ask it to someone who understands such types of documents who you can trust.

My friend signed the contract, thus now he would become the owner of a house and he had secured financing to buy the house.

The move

The friend asked some friends of which I am one to help him move his furniture and other belongings. He didn't have that much but still, moving a bed, some dressings, a desk, tables, chairs and boxes takes some time. The move went rather quick so no problem there.

A new beginning

My friend figured out that the previous owners had taken away the doorbell (the type with video to see who rang the bell). He contacted the previous owners and they told him, it was broken and they had thus removed him. I am rather suspicious about this explanation as I think they just took it with them but we'll never know. Not worth it neither to take actions for a couple of 100 bucks.

Tip
Visit the house before you sign the final contract to be sure if there is any damage or other issues. This way it's possible to not send over all the money yet until certain things are fixed.

Conclusion

This was partially the reason my previous weeks were really busy as I've helped my friend several days / evenings, together with my own work ofcourse. I tried to write down some tips which seem useful for people buying a house, as most of us only will do it once in our lives!

Thanks for reading!