🇬🇧 Choosing a new home

When we want a new home some planning is needed, independent on if we will rent or buy it.

Some of the points I observed along life moving from one place to another were:

• Where the house (or apartment, or room, etc) is. I prefer the ones close to supermarkets, veterinarians, drugstores and other useful commercial options, with lots of options of transportation around. Some people prefer some quiet place instead. 
• Space. Do you need a garden? Garage? How many rooms are enough? Do you need a spacious kitchen or is ok with a tiny one? Should the bathroom have a bathtub 🛁 or a shower alone is perfect?
• Ambient lighting. Specially in cold or rainy places (even those cold only during the winter), to find a place where sunlight invades the space all the day is good to save energy. If you have solar energy, a place darker inside but where the solar equipment works perfectly is ok.
• Safety. Some people feel comfortable in a house plenty of security systems tools, like cameras and alarms. Other ones prefer a neighbourhood where they can feel safe.
• Finishing. This is not easy to notice if we’re not engineers or something like this, but the quality of the equipment and structure must be observed.
• For people like me who have cats or dogs, it’s important to think in their safety. If we use nylon webs on the windows to protect the cats, we must consider they must open laterally or pulling to the inside, never pushing to the outside as, with the webs, this would be almost impossible.
• Sockets. It seems not important, but the quantity and location of the sockets is very important. In my current apartment there is one right behind the bed and the bed (queen size) is too heavy to move. As the apartment was furnished when I came, I should have had observed this before. Lesson learned.
• For some people and places other points must be observed. In Brazil most showers are electric. In the south, where the winter is cold, some houses have the water for the showers heated by gas. In some other regions solar heating is an option too. If you’re from a hot place and come to live in the south I suggest you to choose gas.
• Weather. In Europe they have a heating system different from Brazil, where we use air conditioners, and some have the option to keep the place warm, not only to cool it. We must observe the weather we’re used to live and the one in our new destination to know our needs regarding how to keep the temperature inside the house comfortable.
• For furnished places I recommend to check the quality of furniture and machines and to observe the validity of the gas devices.
• To verify the documents is useful too, also paying attention to the local laws.

Do you have some extra tip? Share it with me.

Nycka, the nomad