Moving is hard, but we're happy we did it

Since we moved to Germany in March 2021, we’ve changed flats three times. When we arrived in BER airport for the first time, we rented a temporary, furnished flat for six months. Then we moved to a permanent, unfurnished flat so that we could start personalising our living space. Five years later, we’ve moved again, this time into a flat of our own.

The first two moves were relatively easy. When we arrived at BER airport, we had only four big pieces of luggage. After six months, when we moved to the new unfurnished flat, we’d bought only a few things. Due to COVID, we were exposing ourselves to the outside world only when necessary. This time, however, was different. We had bought a lot of different things. We basically had everything we had before migrating to Germany, plus a lot of new stuff for Nika, our daughter.

It took us more than two weeks to move everything. At first, I thought I could do it myself, just like the first time. This time was a bit different, though, because we had a car. So I decided to start taking things over bit by bit every day after work, and for the bigger stuff, I would take an XXL Miles car.

After doing this for five days, I faced reality: we had much more stuff than I had expected. So, I hired one of those moving companies that brings its own transporter to move the rest. It took them eight hours to move everything that day.

After we moved, I thought everything was finally finished and that I could get back to normal life. However, it was only the beginning.

The flat we moved into is brand new. This is great, but it also means that we have to buy a lot of things for it. For example, we needed new lighting for every single room. In addition, small things such as toilet paper holders and bathroom mirrors had to be installed, and we had to find a new internet provider, among many other things.

As I’m writing this, we’ve been living here for two weeks, and there are still a lot of these small things that need to be done.

Change of address

This is probably one of the most underrated things you need to do after relocating to a different place in Germany. You need to change your address with almost every service you use. I knew this had to be done, so I started preparing a list:

• DHL
• PayPal
• Mobile phone service provider
• The company I bought my car from
• Liability insurance company
• Berufsunfähigkeitsversicherung provider
• Google
• Netflix
• Spotify
• Car insurance company
• Apple
• Deutsche Bahn
• Rundfunk (public radio and TV in Germany)
• Deutsche Bank
• Revolut
• N26
• IKEA
• Hausverwaltung (property management company)
• Amazon
• Anmeldung (official address registration in Germany)
• Car registration
• The company I work for
• Miles
• Health insurance company
• The company I buy my domains from

The funny thing is that while writing this list, a few new items came to mind that I had to add to it.

Handing over the previous flat

If you’re single or a couple without children, this part should be relatively straightforward. With kids, however, it’s a bit different.

When we moved into our previous flat, Nika was only 3.5 years old. She’s now nine. In Germany, you’re generally expected to return a rented flat in the condition in which you received it. This can include things such as walls and painting.

There were a lot of small spots that we had to clean up in almost every room. We’ve already fixed many of them, but as I’m writing this, there are still a lot of things that need to be done.

One easy option is to hire a painter to do it for you, but obviously, that costs a lot of money. For our 76sqm flat, we were quoted around €1,000 by a painter to do the work. The wall paint and all the equipment we needed cost less than €100. As a result, we decided to do it ourselves.

We’re hoping that once we’ve fixed everything, we’ll be able to get our deposit back in full. There are a lot of stories on the internet about landlords charging their tenants for every small thing, so it makes us a bit worried.

But we’re super happy about it

Everything I’ve mentioned above is about the pain points and the ton of work we had to do. Honestly, my body aches as I’m writing this because of all the work. But I think it’s important to mention that we’re super happy with the final result.

First of all, we’re moving into a home of our own. We still make a monthly payment, but now it’s to the bank rather than to a landlord. Every mortgage payment is, at least in part, an investment in something that belongs to us.

Second, the flat we’ve moved into has three bedrooms instead of one. Given that we have only one child, one of the rooms can be used as a home office and gym. This gives us a lot more flexibility and convenience.

After a lot of work and effort, we’ve finally reached our sweet spot. And I think this is, in many ways, what life is about.

The things that matter most rarely come easily. They require time, effort, frustration, and sometimes a lot of physical pain. But when you finally get there, you look back and realise that all that effort was worth it.