Moving into rented

Some great advice here, thank you everyone. I loved the idea of treating it all like a holiday, eating out a lot , no gardening or house maintenance to do. I really will try to do that and bring a positive attitude to what, frankly, I have been dreading. I think I will go for unfurnished with a garage to store the boxes of stuff I want to keep but don't need day to day. The clear out sounds good. There will be a lot of stuff to get rid of as we will be downsizing and anyway, as I've got older I've got more and more fed up with all the stuff and clutter. A new era beckons!

Having had to move and rent quite a few times over the last two years due to family illness I would agree with parklife..having my own things round me was a comfort ,yes it can be hard work so take time to decide what you really want with you and store the rest..when you finally unpack properly it's lovely!!uou greet your things like old friends!

We lived in a rented flat for 7 months last year while waiting for a new build to be completed, as we sold our house more quickly than we thought. It was a furnished ground floor flat in a modern complex with factoring, own parking space and plenty parking places for visitors. We didn't want to trail round too many, so picked out a few on the ground floor, with parking, in different areas, within our price range. We chose the second one we saw, and it turned out very well. In fact, I loved it. It was small but comfortable, very near a bus stop, and had a co-op, Spar, chip shop within a short walking distance. We could also walk to the surgery and chemist. Once our furniture was stored, we just had to move in with only what we really wanted to take. It's always going to cost money that you wouldn't have to spend if you could move straight from your previous property into a new one. One thing that surprised me was the amount of checks and paperwork involved, but necessary I suppose. We didn't find that the furnished two bedroom flat cost much more than an unfurnished one. Look around the areas you're thinking of, and check amenities and convenience for your own needs.

Try to get rid of as much as possible, furniture especially, just keep what you really need. Keep personal papers to hand, you will need them. When we downsized we moved from large 4 bedroom to 2 bedroom Park Home.Look through all your ornaments & personal/sentimental bits, do you really need them/want to keep them?

Many charities will come & look at furniture & white goods, they will give them a good home, no payment but that will benefit people with low incomes. We cleared out a lot of excess before we moved

Hard as it is it is probably best to get rid of anything you really don't need/want before you move. Then you can see how much stuff you have to move. I would rent unfurnished or else you will be paying twice once for accommodation and once for storage for furniture which is not cheap. We have a lockup and it cost us 125 pcm and some cost more.

My daughter got a promotion at work that meant moving from Dover to Telford. We have been in rented accommodation for the past two years almost whilst we both sold our houses in Dover (mine took ages to sell). Now we are in the middle of buying our own house again. We have had two different houses whilst renting, the first from a private landlord and this one we are in now from an Agency. Renting is okay but it is dead money - you don't benefit at all and the rent we are paying for a 3 bed house is more than half the mortgage payment we will have to find for a 4 bed house with double garage. Although this rented house is unfurnished it is a small modern house with very little storage and, because my daughter had a 4 bed house before we have had to rent a storage unit as well which has added to the expense (I sold or donated most of my furniture as there just wasn't anywhere for it to go).

We moved into rented whilst our 'proper' house was being finished. It was unfurnished, so we had our furniture in there, there were white goods in the kitchen and we had to leave our integrated stuff behind.

I liked having our own furniture, but all non essentials stayed in boxes in the spare room and garage.

A lot of landlords only rent unfurnished now a days something to do with rights when letting. My neighbour could only find unfurnished when they were moving, with the exception of white goods.My own personal preference would be to have all my own belongings around me rather than if in storage and you find you need something you haven't got you keep nipping to storage to retrieve it.Unfurnished is cheaper than furnished so it balances out if you don't have to pay storage costs.Good luck.

Ive moved four times in the last two and a half years!!! From my own house to rented. If I were you I wouldn't use storage - cheaper to just rent. As others have said though, do sort through stuff first and get rid of as much as possible. I've never found it stressful to pack and unpack ... It gets easier every time I do it lol!!! At least you'll know where your things are if you don't put them in store! Good luck.

Not everyone's cup of tea and it depends on who 'we' are. 2 adults + children ?? then if its just two adults then rent a mobile home and put what you don't need into storage. There are lots of mobile home parks around. A friend of mine rented one while her divorce went through.They can be a lot cheaper to rent than a house or flat.

we did this a few years back when we were renovating/rebuilding a house. To save storage costs we rented a bigger house than we needed and stored stuff in the garage and spare room. It was an unfurnished house so it was a case of using our own day to day stuff and storing the books and other bits and pieces, washing machine etc that we didnt need every day

We were in this position 15 years ago. Sold house and rented furnished flat. Luckily interest from money in bank from house sale paid for furniture in storage (changed days!!). I kept back some personal stuff (photos, etc) but didn't really miss anything until it came to Christmas and friends were donating stuff to us to cheer us up as our new property was taking longer than expected!! We treated it as a holiday home and ate out a lot and we had no garden to look after so travelled about a bit as well. Everyone felt sorry for us over the delay but we really enjoyed it and it gave us a bit of a new perspective on our way of life with the realisation that "possessions" aren't really that important although I must say that when we moved into our new home it was lovely to see all the "bits and pieces" again.

Exactly as CariGransnet said. We took what we needed to live comfortably and the rest went into storage. We ended up renting for 9 moths before finding our next home. Best position to be in when buying a new place as well! When we finally moved in a lot of the stuff we had paid to store we then got rid of as realised after 9 months that we probably didn't need it! Good luck.

We did this recently and decided to rent an unfurnished property so we didn't need to put our stuff in storage. We worked out it would a similar cost, extra rent vs storage costs, and preferred to have our own stuff around us.

Magsymoo, we moved from a larger house into a much smaller rented, we made sure that all this one had in it was a cooker/hob. I left my white goods in with the sale of my house and just bought a new cheaper washer and fridge freezer to have here. We made sure this house had a garage, so we obviously unpacked furniture and cutlery, kitchen stuff etc, but a lot of our pictures, and ornaments, basically all the stuff you don't NEED for everyday life is still in boxes in there , ready to go whenever we choose.That is half the trouble when you move, it's not the essentials of packing and furniture etc that takes the time, it's the things like thew ornaments and sentimental stuff. Don't be afraid of 'Having to pack it all up again' to move again, it will never be as bad as your big move from your larger house. Get rid of as much stuff as you can NOW and then you won't have to worry about carting it or storing it. Also if you rent a place with a good enough garage, you are not having to pay storage costs, same with unfurnished as your furniture can mostly go in the house, and it is keeping it aired and used.
I hope this is of some help, I know it's really daunting thinking of doing it all, but I would always go unfurnished, less chance of any damage to something belonging to the landlord, and room to put your own temporary stamp on the place. Don't forget, you will have to feel comfy there for as long as it takes to find somewhere. I speak from experience !

We were moving to France to start a business and had to sell our large house to fund everything. We rented an unfurnished 3 bedroom house for 6 months and used the largest and smallest bedrooms to store the things that we didn't need to unpack.This worked out cheaper than a smaller house and a storage facility. Once we had bought our house in France we took a large trailer full of furniture and belongings over every other weekend until the final trip had just our essentials (bed, white goods,one sofa and tv etc). It made sense at the time but was bloody hard work constantly moving belongings!

We moved 300 miles and rented until we found a place we wanted to buy in. For us this was the right thing to do as the town we rented ,we had always holidayed around and it seemed the perfect place to re-locate but in the end we purchased somewhere 9 miles away which suits us perfectly. We rented unfurnished ,which was just that - including no white goods.

We rented a smallish unfurnished house and made an effort to reduce our possessions to the bare minimum beforehand. We decided we would probably want all new in our next home anyway and it was easy enough to sell all the old furniture. Rented houses are well equipped these days with washing machines, dishwashers etc. so all you really need are your beds, a sofa and a table. We left most of our personal possessions in the box room and managed not to open them for 9 months, so no unpacking and repacking needed, (although you could get the removal men to do that anyway). We were so lucky the landlord allowed our two dogs and four cats (cost a bit extra).

I moved into a rented flat when I divorced - prior to that of course we got rid of a lot of stuff that neither of us wanted. The flat was a large one-bedroom place so I was able to take what I wanted and not pay rent for storage.

Fitted white goods are usually left behind in a sale and you can ensure that any rental flat has all you need. Prices are generally dropping so you might not be in a hurry to buy and end up staying for longer.

My intention was to stay for a year while I looked around but I found my ideal place within a couple of months!

A few years ago we downsized and moved to another town and knowing we would not have the same amount of space in our new place we sold/gave away a lot of furniture before we moved. We were unable to move into the new place for 6 months and so rented a small flat that fortunately came with a garage. Fortunately most of the stuff we were keeping fitted into the garage although it was surprisingly difficult to find somewhere to rent for a 6 month term as most letting agents required a minimum of 1 year, so we did end up paying a little over the odds but I suppose it was worth it as if we had insisted on staying in the old house the sale would have probably fallen through.

If you are moving from a big house to a smaller house then you're going to have too much stuff anyway. I would look for a house that includes white goods but use your own sofa, bed etc. I would sort through everything and get rid of things I really didn't want then put the rest into storage.

We only want to move nearby so knowing the area isn't an issue. I'm thinking of the cost of storage added to the cost of renting versus having all your own stuff around you but in effect having to pack and unpack twice. I don't know how long we could be in that situation as we are now looking for our perfect retirement home. At the moment we have a big house and a massive garden which exhaust me.

If u r moving to another area it might be a good idea to rent something there first and see how u like it.

We only rented for 3 months and that was years ago - everything went into store including my washing machine.

Nowadays you probably wouldn't find a rented place without a washing machine! but handwashing and trekking to the launderette (no car) for 5 people was stressful, as well as not having quite enough furniture.
If you're thinking of renting for a year I would choose what you can't live without, rent an unfurnished place and put the rest of it in store.

The night we moved into our new house was the first night I had slept properly for a long time (not just the move, other factors involved too).

I hope you find somewhere quickly.