How To Decorate Your New Place On The Cheap:

Before we moved into our current house, I loved our furniture. We had a comfy purple sofa and a contrasting chair. Our coffee table was small, but full of much needed storage. Our cute little cottage was the perfect fit for our Bo-Ho decor, but our new home has a more Mid-Century Modern vibe.

We moved everything in without a problem, but nothing fit. Add to that the fact that our new house is so much bigger than our last. Suddenly, after shelling out a huge downpayment, and having to buy new appliances, plus the cost of the move, we found ourselves in desperate need of furniture and no money in the budget to buy it. Fortunately, we found solutions, and they were often free.

Nextdoor

If you haven’t checked out the app NextDoor, you need to. It’s a social media site for neighborhoods. It gets weird at times, so I advise staying away from the controversial topics, but it’s a great source for free and very cheap furniture and decor, and all right in your neighborhood or in adjacent neighborhoods. I haven’t seen statistics, but I’d imagine the lack of anonymity makes it a bit safer than older classified type sites, like Craigslist. We got an entire coffee table, end table, sofa table set for free.

Facebook Marketplace

Not to be outdone, Facebook now has a Marketplace, and like with NextDoor, there are a lot of free and inexpensive household items. Perhaps because they have a broader range (up to 100 miles from where you live), it’s a bit more anonymous than NextDoor, and maybe a bit riskier.

Craigslist or Freecycle

Lots of free and cheap stuff on Craigslist and Freecycle, but there’s the risk of anonymity. If you feel a little uncomfortable doing business with a stranger, you can agree to meet at a police station.

Thrift Stores and Consignment Stores

Thrift stores and consignment stores can have a wealth of inexpensive decor and furniture. You’d be amazed at some of the gems people take to thrift and consignment stores.

Fix Up Your Own Furniture

If you love your furniture and the color just isn’t right, or it’s beat up, fix it up. Reupholster your sofa and upholstered chairs. Refinish or paint your wood furniture. It will all be like new, only better.

10 Best-Kept Secrets for Buying a Home

Buying Secret #10: Keep Your Money Where It Is

It’s not wise to make any huge purchases or move your money around three to six months before buying a new home. You don’t want to take any big chances with your credit profile. Lenders need to see that you’re reliable and they want a complete paper trail so that they can get you the best loan possible. If you open new credit cards, amass too much debt or buy a lot of big-ticket items, you’re going to have a hard time getting a loan.

Buying Secret #9: Get Pre-Approved for Your Home Loan

There’s a big difference between a buyer being pre-qualified and a buyer who has a pre-approved mortgage. Anybody can get pre-qualified for a loan. Getting pre-approved means a lender has looked at all of your financial information and they’ve let you know how much you can afford and how much they will lend you. Being pre-approved will save you a lot of time and energy so you are not running around looking at houses you can't afford. It also gives you the opportunity to shop around for the best deal and the best interest rates. Do your research: Learn about junk fees, processing fees or points and make sure there aren’t any hidden costs in the loan.

Property Brothers - Home Buying and Remodeling Tips 7 Videos

Buying Secret #8: Avoid a Border Dispute

It’s absolutely essential to get a survey done on your property so you know exactly what you’re buying. Knowing precisely where your property lines are may save you from a potential dispute with your neighbors. Also, your property tax is likely based on how much property you have, so it is best to have an accurate map drawn up.

Buying Secret # 7: Don’t Try to Time the Market

Don’t obsess with trying to time the market and figure out when is the best time to buy. Trying to anticipate the housing market is impossible. The best time to buy is when you find your perfect house and you can afford it. Real estate is cyclical, it goes up and it goes down and it goes back up again. So, if you try to wait for the perfect time, you’re probably going to miss out.

Buying Secret # 6: Bigger Isn’t Always Better

Everyone’s drawn to the biggest, most beautiful house on the block. But bigger is usually not better when it comes to houses. There’s an old adage in real estate that says don’t buy the biggest, best house on the block. The largest house only appeals to a very small audience and you never want to limit potential buyers when you go to re-sell. Your home is only going to go up in value as much as the other houses around you. If you pay $500,000 for a home and your neighbors pay $250,000 to $300,000, your appreciation is going to be limited. Sometimes it is best to is buy the worst house on the block, because the worst house per square foot always trades for more than the biggest house.

Buying Secret #5: Avoid Sleeper Costs

The difference between renting and homeownership is the sleeper costs. Most people just focus on their mortgage payment, but they also need to be aware of the other expenses such as property taxes, utilities and homeowner-association dues. New homeowners also need to be prepared to pay for repairs, maintenance and potential property-tax increases. Make sure you budget for sleeper costs so you’ll be covered and won’t risk losing your house.

Buying Secret #4: You’re Buying a House – Not Dating It

Buying a house based on emotions is just going to break your heart. If you fall in love with something, you might end up making some pretty bad financial decisions. There’s a big difference between your emotions and your instincts. Going with your instincts means that you recognize that you’re getting a great house for a good value. Going with your emotions is being obsessed with the paint color or the backyard. It’s an investment, so stay calm and be wise.

Buying Secret #3: Give Your House a Physical

Would you buy a car without checking under the hood? Of course you wouldn’t. Hire a home inspector. It’ll cost about $200 but could end up saving you thousands. A home inspector’s sole responsibility is to provide you with information so that you can make a decision as to whether or not to buy. It’s really the only way to get an unbiased third-party opinion. If the inspector does find any issues with the home, you can use it as a bargaining tool for lowering the price of the home. It’s better to spend the money up front on an inspector than to find out later you have to spend a fortune.

Buying Secret #2: The Secret Science of Bidding

Your opening bid should be based on two things: what you can afford (because you don’t want to outbid yourself), and what you really believe the property is worth. Make your opening bid something that’s fair and reasonable and isn’t going to totally offend the seller. A lot of people think they should go lower the first time they make a bid. It all depends on what the market is doing at the time. You need to look at what other homes have gone for in that neighborhood and you want to get an average price per square foot. Sizing up a house on a price-per-square-foot basis is a great equalizer. Also, see if the neighbors have plans to put up a new addition or a basketball court or tennis court, something that might detract from the property’s value down the road.

Today, so many sellers are behind in their property taxes and if you have that valuable information it gives you a great card to negotiate a good deal. To find out, go to the county clerk’s office.

Sellers respect a bid that is an oddball number and are more likely to take it more seriously. A nice round number sounds like every other bid out there. When you get more specific the sellers will think you've given the offer careful thought.

Buying Secret #1: Stalk the Neighborhood

Before you buy, get the lay of the land – drop by morning noon and night. Many homebuyers have become completely distraught because they thought they found the perfect home, only to find out the neighborhood wasn’t for them. Drive by the house at all hours of the day to see what’s happening in the neighborhood. Do your regular commute from the house to make sure it is something you can deal with on a daily basis. Find out how far it is to the nearest grocery store and other services. Even if you don’t have kids, research the schools because it affects the value of your home in a very big way. If you buy a house in a good school district versus bad school district even in the same town, the value can be affected as much as 20 percent.

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How to decide what to pack when moving

Packing for a move is an arduous task that you should initiate very early in the home moving process. Ideally, you want to start the job of sorting and packing up your things without any delay so that you can guarantee its successful completion at least one full day prior to Moving day.

Naturally, before you can begin to transfer your belongings into cardboard boxes, first you’ll need to decide what to keep when moving to another home. This is a very important step when moving your belongings between two homes simply because all the right decisions will enable you to save many hours of valuable time (packing and unpacking time).

But that’s not all. Packing nothing but the things you like, want and intend to use in the future will also help you save loads of money by lowering the packing expenses and decreasing the transportation costs.

Decluttering your home before a move is a must-do task, but deciding what to keep when moving can be much tougher than you think.

Here’s how to decide what to take when moving:

Step 1. Inventory your home to know what you’re up against
The best way to decide what to pack for a move is to ask yourself a series of essential questions that should simplify greatly the decision-making process. But before you can reach that Q&A session with yourself, there are a couple of important steps you’ll need to take, one by one.

The very first step to packing the right things for a move is to create a detailed inventory of all the items in your home. You may think you know well enough the number and nature of the household items under your roof, but human memory is fallible and you may have forgotten some of the things you own.

So, to refresh your memory, go through the contents of each room in your current residence and create a comprehensive inventory checklist.

As you’re building up your home inventory sheet, make sure you mark the important pieces of information about each item:

item description,
current condition,
cost,
sentimental value, and
additional notes.
Later, all of these inventory parameters will definitely help you decide the fate of each item in the home – whether to take that thing with you or whether to leave it behind.

See also: How to create a home inventory for moving


Step 2. Create three separate inventory piles
As you’re going through your possessions, you should sort them out into three distinctive piles: TAKE, NOT SURE, and LEAVE BEHIND.

The TAKE pile
Some of the items in your home will be no-brainers when it comes to solving the to-take-or-not-to-take riddle. Such must-move items include but are not limited to:

essential items that you will pack into your Open-First box,
valuables such as your jewelry, your priceless stamp collection, etc.,
high-quality furniture pieces, including antique furniture,
expensive electronic devices (electronics) around the house,
important documents,
artwork pieces, pictures, paintings, and decorations,
musical instruments,
sentimental items such as family heirlooms, special gifts, and so on.
Basically, any household item that you consider practical and valuable should be on that shortlist of items to pack when moving house.

The NOT SURE pile
As you’re sorting out your possessions, you will come across many items which you won’t know for sure whether to take with you or just leave behind.

Some objects that are typical of the NOT SURE pile include:

Old furniture. Most furniture pieces are big and heavy, which makes their transportation too expensive. You may really like your queen-size bed but moving it hundreds or thousands of miles away will probably cost more than buying a brand-new bed after the move. So, will the bed moving operation be justifiable in the end? Read on to figure this out.
Clothes. Once you start going through your clothes, you’ll most likely ask yourself, “Will I ever wear this again?” on multiple occasions. Sure, clothes are not as large and heavy as furniture pieces, but packing too many clothes that you’ll never wear again and only wonder where to store in the new home won’t make much sense either.
Books. Books are super heavy when packed together in boxes, so it’s high time you finally thinned out your book collection before initiating the packing job.
Of course, this will be the toughest pile to tackle as you just won’t be sure what to do with some of those items. The good news is that the questions in the next step (Step 3) will facilitate the decision-making process so that you don’t lose too much valuable time stuck in indecision.

Must-read: Is it better to move your furniture or buy new after the move?

The LEAVE BEHIND pile
What to leave behind when moving? Include in this pile items that you never liked, and rarely or never used but ones that are still in good condition so that they can continue to be useful to other people.

Remember that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Interestingly enough, you’ve got the largest number of options when it comes to the LEAVE BEHIND category of household items – you can sell them (either online or at a garage sale), you can gift them to friends, family members or neighbors, or you can choose to donate them, thus doing something good for the community.

Clearly, the LEAVE BEHIND group will consist of things that are now too outdated, too worn out or simply too broken to be of any use to anyone. Don’t forget to recycle properly those discarded items.

Important note: You are not allowed to pack dangerous (flammable, corrosive and explosive) items for moving as they fall into the non-allowables category. Follow the link below to first recognize those hazardous items and then to learn how to dispose of them properly before packing for a move.

What things not to pack when moving: List of non-allowable items

Step 3. Ask yourself the right questions
As you can suspect, it’s the NOT SURE pile of household items that will give you the hardest time when sorting it out for packing. Whenever you’re in doubt about what to do with an item, ask yourself these very questions while you’re getting ready to move out:

Is the item practical and useful? How often do you use it – daily, often, from time to time, almost never, never?
Is it functional and easy to use?
Do you need it? Do you really intend to use it in the future?
Does it make your life better in any way?
What’s its current condition? How much longer will it last?
Is it a high-quality product that’ll be difficult or impossible to replace?
Will you be able to use it in the new area and the new home?
Will it fit into the new apartment or house? (especially true for large furniture, appliances, and pianos)
Will it match the décor of the new residence? (especially valid for furniture, area rugs, curtains, etc.)
Do you have a designated place for the item in the new house? If not, will you have enough space to store it?
Does it have any sentimental value for you?
Is it an irreplaceable item? Collector’s items, family heirlooms, vintage items, unique pieces of art and other very rare objects are often irreplaceable, which means you’d better take them with you.
One final piece of advice: Don’t go too far
Getting rid of unnecessary items is something you just have to do in order to lower the moving costs, cut the packing and unpacking time and create more space in the new home.

However, it’s possible that you get carried away in the decluttering task and throw away something or somethings that you shouldn’t have. If you’re not sure what to do with an item, give yourself some more time to figure it out.

Ultimately, if it’s something small and light, then it won’t take much space in the moving truck and it won’t affect significantly the total shipment weight either. In which case, you can choose to skip the tough decision now and decide the fate of that particular item after the move.