Life has changed so much the past 18 months. Our day to day routines are now unrecognisable for many of us. Since Covid-19 attacked the world in 2020 we were informed to stay at home. We had school closures, holidays cancelled and of course we had to work from home.
Our bedrooms became our offices, Our kitchens became our schools, The back garden became our only outdoor space – our house became our bubble. We didn’t move far from it for 5 months ( and that was just the first lockdown).
Whilst life has gone back to normal in a lot of ways, it hasn’t in others. Work life has changed for lots of people. Companies have learned that people can effectively do their work from home and there is much more flexibility around the ‘working day’.
My husband now continues to work from home 80% of his week and as a freelancer I also work from home. Whilst it has its ups and downs, generally this arrangement works for us. As parents of three primary school aged children it allows us to get our jobs done whilst being able to work around our family life. We are more flexible. We can take an hour out of our day to attend a school event, take our son to football, pick up our kids up from school and then make up the work when our children are in bed if necessary. It also saves my husband doing a 90 minute commute every day. We definitely have a better work life balance than ever before.
We have discovered so many positives from our new working arrangement but it has definitely changed our home requirements, and at times we seriously as ourselves the question ‘Is it time to move house?’
We are not alone in our thoughts. In the US over 15.9 million people have moved during the coronavirus, according to USPS data.
For us as a family we feel like we need more space. Somewhere that my husband can concentrate on his work whilst the children can still play, make noise and feel comfortable. We need more storage for work documents and computers. More outdoor space would be nice for the children to play more freely. The pandemic has definitely opened our eyes. Not just that, but now we are not doing daily commutes, our house location isn’t as important any more. We now know we can work remotely from anywhere in the country.
Rightmove reported that Cornwall has overtaken London this year as the most searched for location. People don’t need to live in cities anymore to work. They can move house to wherever they want.
We have checked out what we can afford and what our monthly payments would be with a mortgage calculator which was so helpful as it gave us a good idea of our budget. My husband is constantly looking on Your Move to see what is out there. He receives alerts when a new house that suit our needs comes for sale. We have even managed to view a few.
Truthfully we are in no rush to move house. We will only definitely move if the perfect house within our budget becomes available, but I have to admit post pandemic life and the new normal has definitely opened our eyes to new and different possibilities.
Have you moved house since the pandemic started?