Did you know that many people who move home also need to worry about short-term housing? That can happen to you too. For example, if the lease of your old home finishes before the lease of your new one starts, you won’t have a place to stay for a few days or weeks. In some rare cases, this can span over a period of months.
Avoiding this scenario
Even if you are the most organised person in the world, having to look for short-term housing will be a huge inconvenience to you. But there are a few easy ways in you can avoid going down that path. As a start, pay attention to the details related to the start of the lease of your new house. Often times, when people are looking for a new home, they focus on things such as location and rental price which is normal, of course. However, many of them completely forget to ask about the lease. Granted – it is really hard to match the lease of your new and old homes but you can at least do your best at minimising the waiting period. So, do pay attention to this detail the next time you are house hunting.
How to solve your problem?
If you have already signed a contract for the new property and you have just realised that you will need a short-term housing, after all, there is simply no getting out of this situation. You should have just followed Step 1 of this guide. But this is not the end of the world since you have plenty of short-term housing options to choose from including:
- Stay with a friend or a family member;
- Rent a vacation home;
- Find a short-term rental;
- Stay at a hotel;
- Rent a vacation home;
Staying with someone you know is the best and most affordable solution you have. However, if you need to stay at your friend’s house for more than a couple of weeks, it is best to skip this option. Unless your mate owns you a big favour, you should not burden them with your presence for an extended period of time that covers months, for example.
Another thing you can do is to rent a vacation home. These days, there are plenty of websites that offer such accommodation. The problem is that it will cost you a lot of money since such homes are designed for tourists. Similar is the case with hotels and motels. Well, there are many budget-friendly offers out there but you need to be prepared to make do with a second-tier service and room quality.
Last, but not least, you can ask a broker to find you a short-term rental. The market for them is not big so finding such a property may take time.
Find a temporary home for your items too
Whatever short-term housing solution you choose to go with, put most of your items and furniture in a safe storage in London. In that way, you won’t have to drag them along with you. Doing that will also help you convince one of your friends or relatives to crash in their home for a while because no one wants a pile of moving boxes in the middle of their house, right!