Selling Your Home? Plan the Move and Storage Around Closing

The short answer

Store what you don’t need while the house is on the market, and plan your move around the closing date with room for it to move. If you sell before you can get into your next home, put your belongings in household storage in sealed wooden vaults and have them delivered when you have the keys.

Keep your agent and escrow officer in the loop. They know the dates in your contract; your mover only needs to know which are fixed and which might change.

Before you list: clear out for the photos

Buyers see your house in photos first. Rooms with less furniture look bigger, and closets that are half empty look like plenty of space. Most agents will ask you to take out more than you expect.

Things that usually go before the listing photos:

• Extra furniture. The spare chairs, the second sofa, the desk in the guest room, the bookcase that narrows the hallway.
• Personal things. Family photos, collections, trophies and the fridge door.
• Half of every closet. Out-of-season clothes, shoes, linens, suitcases.
• The garage overflow. Buyers open the garage. Boxes stacked to the ceiling make it look small.
• Things you’d hate to see damaged or missing. Art, heirlooms, small valuables. Showings mean strangers walk through.

Many of the sellers who call us start here. They box up a share of the house before it goes on the market and have it collected, then move the rest once the sale closes.

Pack those boxes as if they’re going to the new house, because they are. Label each one by room and contents, and keep a short list of what went where.

Where to keep furniture while the house is on the market

The right answer depends on how long the house might take to sell and how much you are moving out.

With full-service storage, the crew packs, wraps and loads at your house, and the same company stores it and brings it back. You never carry anything twice.

Booking movers around a closing date that may move

Closing dates slip: loan paperwork runs late, a repair takes longer, or the buyer’s own sale is delayed. Plan for that from the first call.

• Call once you’re in escrow, not once you have keys. Our office usually suggests booking three to four weeks ahead, and earlier in busy months. On a short escrow, call the week you accept the offer.
• Give the mover two dates. The date you hope to move and the latest date you could move. That tells the office how much room you have.
• Ask how date changes work before you book, so a slipped closing is a phone call, not a problem.
• Aim to be out a day or two before closing, unless your contract says otherwise. Ask your agent when the buyer gets the keys. Sometimes it’s the day escrow closes, sometimes later.
• Get the estimate early. California requires a written estimate before a household move. For how a local move is priced, see how much movers cost in the Coachella Valley.

If your agent referred you to us, say so on the call. It helps to know who to update when a date changes.

When you sell before you can move in

This is one of the most common reasons sellers call us. The old house closes on one date, the new one on another, and there are days or weeks with nowhere to put a household. The next home might be a new build that runs late, a purchase that hasn’t closed, or a rental that isn’t free until the first.

Here is how storage in between works with us:

1. Pack and load. Our crew wraps the furniture and packs boxes at your home, or loads the boxes you packed, and takes everything to our Indio warehouse.
2. Sealed vaults. Your things go into wooden vaults, each about 7½ by 6½ by 5½ feet, which are closed up and kept apart from everyone else’s. Nobody handles them but our staff.
3. Call ahead for anything. If you need something from storage before you move in, call and tell us what it is. We need notice to get the vault out and ready.
4. Delivery. When you have the keys, call and book the delivery. The crew brings everything to the new address and places the furniture where you want it.

Before the crew loads, set aside what you’ll live on until delivery: clothes for the expected gap plus a week, medications, chargers, work equipment, school things, and every document from the sale and the purchase. Keep jewelry, cash and passports with you, not in storage.

Then decide where you’ll stay. People use a short-term rental, family, a hotel for a short gap, or a rent-back on the house they just sold.

Rent-backs: staying on after closing

A rent-back means the sale closes, but you stay in the house for an agreed time as the buyer’s tenant. It can turn two moves into one: you move straight from the sold house to the new one, with no storage in between.

The terms are set in writing between you and the buyer, through your agents. How long you can stay, what you pay and what happens if you are late are questions for your agent or escrow officer, not your mover. What matters for the move is simple: the move-out date in the agreement is the one to book, and it is usually firm, because the buyer is waiting to move in.

Book the movers as soon as it is signed. If the new home might still not be ready when it ends, ask for a quote that includes storage.

When the purchase closes first

If you get the keys to the new home before the old one closes, you can move straight across, with no storage at all. Some sellers use the overlap to move in stages: the boxes and spare rooms first, the main furniture last, so the old house still looks lived in for the final showings. Ask your agent whether the house should be empty or furnished at closing.

Selling furnished, or leaving pieces for the buyer

In the desert it is common to sell a home fully or partly furnished, especially a second home. If some furniture stays, get the list in writing through your agent before the estimate, and tell us. That way the crew doesn’t pack the dining set the buyer paid for, and the estimate only counts what is actually moving.

Selling from out of town

Plenty of the sellers who call us are away for the summer or live in another state. You can still plan the move from a distance. Ask about an estimate by video call, and ask your agent, a neighbor or a family member to let the crew in on moving day. If the furniture is going out of state, see long-distance moving. If you are also leaving a car behind until it ships or you return, we have car storage too.

A week-by-week plan

For the day itself, our local movers handle moves anywhere in the Coachella Valley, with storage in Indio when you need it.

Questions people ask about moving when selling a house

Selling in the valley? See storage, local moving and packing, or request a quote.

More from the blog

• 5 Reasons to Move and Store With One Company
• The Ultimate Moving Checklist for a Stress-Free Relocation
• How Much Do Movers Cost in Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley?
• Don’t Hire Movers Without Asking These Questions

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