You are deciding how much of your cash the move itself consumes, so that the price you give the lender and the agent is the price you can afford after the move and not before it. The house is the largest number on the page, but it is the last one in the chain, and most of the others come due on dates you do not control.
Scouting trips, temporary housing, the mover, deposits, repairs, furnishings, and the months you pay for two places all draw from the same account as the down payment. A buyer who sets his house price first and discovers the rest later has already decided, without meaning to, that the repairs wait and the second month of rent goes on a card. Each line item below comes with the place the number for your address lives. We do not estimate your numbers, because nobody can from here.
Why is the house price the last number and not the first?
Draw three columns on one page: Before Closing, During Closing, After Closing. Under each line item write a second line: the date it comes due. Money is one problem. Timing is a different problem, and the second one is the one that catches relocating buyers, because the deposit for the new electric account and the final payment to the mover and the first mortgage payment can all land inside the same month.
Now count the double months. A double month is any calendar month in which you pay for two places at once: the old mortgage and the new one, the old lease and the new house, a short-term rental and a storage unit. Write that count above the three columns. It moves the house price you can carry more than any other line, and no calculator on a portal asks for it.
The reserve you hold for the After column lowers the price you can pay for the house. Spending that reserve on the house means the repairs, the furnishings, and the deposits go on credit or wait until you can pay them. Either choice is defensible. Make it on purpose, with both columns in front of you.
What do you pay before closing?
Start with the scouting trips. Each trip buys information about the area that no listing photo carries. Each trip also costs airfare or fuel, lodging, meals, and days off work, and a second trip can mean an offer delayed while the house you liked goes under contract to someone else. Decide how many trips you make and who goes on each before you set the house price, because the trips are paid before the house is. How to Plan a Scouting Trip Without Spending the Entire Trip Looking at Houses covers how to run the trip itself.
The double month usually begins here too. If your lease ends after closing, or your old house closes after the new one, the overlap starts before you get the keys. Storage rides with this: anything that leaves the old place before the new one is ready sits somewhere, and someone bills you by the month for it. Buying before you sell avoids a second move and costs one or more double months. Selling before you buy avoids the double months and costs temporary housing and a second move. Neither is free. Selling One House While Buying Another: How to Think About the Timing works through the timing.
The mover’s estimate comes next. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulates interstate movers, and its Protect Your Move site lets you look up whether the company is registered and read the booklet the mover must give you, “Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move.” Official record. That booklet explains the difference between a binding estimate and a non-binding one, and what a mover can require you to pay at delivery under each. A non-binding estimate can come in lower on paper and move at delivery. A binding estimate holds the number and can cost more up front. Get both kinds in writing from at least two registered movers before you pick, and read How to Vet an Interstate Moving Company Before You Give It Your Belongings before you sign anything.
Then the Loan Estimate arrives. Within three business days of your mortgage application, the lender sends it, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publishes a page-by-page explainer for it. Official record. The Loan Estimate lists the closing costs, the prepaid items, and the cash you need to bring to closing, in one place, before you are committed. Read the cash-to-close figure against your three columns. If it only fits by emptying the After column, the house price is too high or the timing is wrong. A cash buyer gets no Loan Estimate; ask the closing agent for the settlement statement as early as it can be drafted, and read it the same way.
What do you pay during closing?
At least three business days before closing, the lender sends the Closing Disclosure. CFPB’s explainer walks through each section. Official record. Two sections carry the money a relocating buyer forgets: the prepaids, which include interest from the closing date to the first payment and the first year of homeowner insurance, and the initial escrow deposit, which is the lender collecting the first months of property tax and insurance up front so the escrow account starts with a cushion. Flood insurance, where the lender requires it, appears here too. Compare every line to the Loan Estimate. A line that grew needs an explanation from the lender before you sign.
Property tax gets prorated on the same document. The buyer and the seller split the current year’s tax according to the closing date. The bill, the due dates, and the amount already paid are on the county treasurer’s or tax collector’s site for the county you are buying in. Official record. Ask the closing agent which direction the proration runs for this closing date. Some counties bill in advance, so you reimburse the seller for the months after closing. Others bill in arrears, so the seller credits you for the months before it.
If the house sits in an association, ask for the resale package before your contingency deadline passes. It lists the dues, any transfer fee charged when ownership changes, and any capital contribution a new owner pays into the reserve. Official record from the association. These are one-time charges at closing that a buyer from a county without associations has never seen, and they do not appear in the listing. Reading the package costs you an evening with a stack of bylaws. Skipping it costs you a fee you learn about at the closing table.
Deposits land in the same stretch. The electric, gas, and water utilities serving the address decide whether a new customer pays a deposit. Call each one with the street address and ask. Provider-reported. If you are renting first, the security deposit and first month are due at signing. If a child starts school or childcare at the new address, the enrollment deposit is due when you register, which is often before closing. None of these are large next to the house. All of them come due around the closing date.
What do you pay after closing?
The repairs come first, and the inspection report already told you which ones. It has three kinds of items: what the seller agreed to fix, what the seller refused and you accepted as a credit or as-is, and what the inspector marked as “monitor,” “near end of service life,” or “recommend evaluation by a licensed contractor.” The third group is the one that costs you money in the first year. A roof with a stated remaining life and a water heater past its expected age go in the After column with a quote from a contractor, not a guess. Quotes take days you may not have inside a contingency period, and a contractor who cannot get into the house before the deadline gives you a range instead of a number. Asking the seller to fix everything can cost you the deal. Taking a credit instead puts the repair on your calendar and your cash. Personal verification: read the report yourself, every page.
Furnishings are the line most buyers discover on moving day. The photos show a furnished house. The contract says what stays. Before closing, walk the house on video, or have your agent walk it, and read the inclusions and exclusions in the contract while you look at each room. The refrigerator, the washer and dryer, the window treatments, the mounted televisions and their brackets, the lawn mower in the garage: each one either conveys or leaves with the seller, and the contract is the only place that says which. Personal verification. The walk costs an hour of your agent’s time and yours, and it can surface a disagreement with the seller that you then have to settle before closing. Then measure the rooms. A couch that fit the old living room does not always fit the new one, and a house with one more bedroom than the old one has one more empty room.
Startup at the new address runs on other people’s schedules. The internet provider installs when it can, and that can run weeks past the day you move in. Provider-reported; call with the exact address. The state motor vehicle agency publishes the deadline for new residents to get a license and register a car. Official record. Registering a car you brought from another state can also mean an inspection and a title fee, and some states tax the car differently than the one you left.
The income gap is the line nobody puts on a ledger. Days pass between the last paycheck at the old job and the first at the new one. A partner’s job search can run months. State income tax differs from the old state’s, in either direction. And the federal moving expense deduction is suspended for most taxpayers, with narrow exceptions that IRS Publication 521 lists, including members of the Armed Forces moving under orders. Official record. If the plan assumed deducting the mover, read the publication first.
The double month ends when the old house sells, or the lease runs out, or the storage unit empties. That month is the first one in which the After column looks like the ordinary life you moved for. Every month before it is part of the price of the move.
How do you weigh the tradeoff?
Every line above has a cheaper version and a cost for choosing it. Fewer scouting trips save money and days off and cost you information you cannot get back once you are under contract. The same shape holds down the whole page.
An employer relocation package changes the page without erasing it. If the employer pays the mover or the temporary housing, read the policy for what it caps, what it pays directly, and what it reimburses after you have already spent. Publication 521 also covers how the IRS treats employer reimbursements, and for most taxpayers they are income. Official record. Move a line out of your column only after you have the coverage in writing.
Good for which life, and at what cost? A buyer with a flexible job and no children can absorb a delayed closing and a month in a short-term rental and may be right to spend the reserve on the house. A buyer with a school start date and a partner between jobs cannot, and is right to hold the reserve and buy less house. The ledger shows you which side of each line you are choosing, and leaves the choosing to you.
What must I verify personally
Before you make an offer, or before your contingency deadline if you already have:
- Get the Loan Estimate from your lender and read the cash-to-close figure against your three columns. When the Closing Disclosure arrives, compare it line by line to the Loan Estimate and ask the lender about any line that grew.
- Call the electric, gas, and water utility that serves the exact address. Ask whether a new customer pays a deposit, how much notice they need to start service, and how the deposit comes back.
- Ask the listing agent for the HOA resale package. Find the transfer fee, any capital contribution, the dues, and any special assessment the board has voted but not yet billed.
- Read the inclusions and exclusions in the purchase contract. Walk the house on video, room by room, and list every item that leaves with the seller.
- Read the inspection report for every item marked monitor, near end of life, or recommend further evaluation. Get a contractor’s quote for each one before the contingency deadline.
- Get written estimates from at least two movers whose registration you have confirmed on the FMCSA site. Confirm in writing whether each estimate is binding or non-binding.
- Put four dates on one calendar: the lease end or old-house closing, the new-house closing, the mover’s delivery window, and the first day of work. Count the double months between them.
- Look up the new state’s deadline for a driver’s license and vehicle registration for new residents, and what the state requires to register a car brought from out of state.
What should I ask a local
- Which utility asked you for a deposit when you moved in, and how long before you saw it again?
- What did your inspection miss that cost you money in the first year?
- If there is an HOA, what did it charge at transfer, and what did it charge in the first year that was not dues?
- How long did the mover’s delivery window run compared to the window on the estimate?
- Which errand did you drive across town for during the first month because you had not found the closer one yet?
What should I ask my agent
- What does this contract say conveys, and what has the seller said he is taking that the contract does not mention?
- For your last three out-of-state buyers, what categories of repair came up in the first ninety days that the inspection did not cover? Ask for the categories, not the amounts.
- Which fees show up at closing in this county that a buyer from elsewhere would not expect?
- Will you attend the inspection and the final walkthrough if I cannot?
Sources
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Loan Estimate explainer: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/owning-a-home/loan-estimate/
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Closing Disclosure explainer: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/owning-a-home/closing-disclosure/
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Owning a Home: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/owning-a-home/
- Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Protect Your Move: https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/protect-your-move
- Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move: https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/protect-your-move/your-rights-and-responsibilities-when-you-move
- Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, mover registration search: https://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/hhg/search.asp
- Internal Revenue Service, Publication 521, Moving Expenses: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p521
- The county treasurer or tax collector for the county you are buying in: property tax bill and due dates
- The state motor vehicle agency for the state you are moving to: new-resident license and registration deadlines
- The electric, gas, water, and internet providers serving the exact address: deposit and installation policy
- The homeowners association resale package for the property: dues, transfer fee, capital contribution, assessments
