How Covid is the catalyst to finally live the life you want
What has the last 6 months looked like in your home? This hasn’t been an equal experience for everyone. For some, it’s been a welcome break. Others a stressful, anxious fight to cope with work or lack of it and an attempt to support their mental health around a never-ending list of tasks.
How has Covid-19 affected your daily life?
Among all these things most people, us included, have thought about how much of our lives we enjoy and how much we would rather change or not go back to.
Have you ever wondered about leaving a city for somewhere greener? Perhaps you’ve thought about upsizing or downsizing or in our case, leaving the country!
When everything around you drastically changes now seems as good a time as any to take the plunge! In our network, two families have moved internationally during Covid and another to the coast.
Maybe you will consider changing role, perhaps your job will allow you to work from home anywhere in the country. As time goes on the type of firm you work for and how they look after you may become more important. Will there be an employee vaccine requirement? How frequently will they test so you can get back to normal? All these things will be something to ponder as we start thinking about life after Covid.
You may be thinking what can the world learn from Covid-19 and more importantly what can you learn from it? What do you want from your life going forward? What do you want to change in your life? Does your current situation still suit you and your family?
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DIY quite literally
As we’ve all been spending so much time in our homes, with many people on furlough. An emerging trend has been to get on with a spot of DIY. This has kept hardware stores in business and helped us all relax during a stressful time. The joy when garden centres reopened was staggering!
For some of us, looking around your home and garden all day has led to long term thinking. If you stay living in your current space does the home and location still suit you? If you would like to stay in the area could you extend, perfect or sell?
Construction is on the rise, most tradespeople downed tools in March and are now inundated with work. From fixing bodged jobs, to bigger projects such as loft or ground floor extensions, improved gardens and landscaping. We find it hard to park at the moment in London due to the many skips lining the streets.
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Selling your home during Covid
For many though, fixing and extending just isn’t enough. For sale signs which long stayed put are now rapidly turning to ‘sold’ and for record prices.
More mortgages were applied for and approved from June onwards than in the first few months of the crisis. However, lenders are now starting to be more cautious as the numbers of applications rise.
As the idea of another full national lockdown diminishes and the government urges us back to the office, trying to move during Covid seems a real possibility.
Using a mortgage calculator it’s easy to see just how tangible it can be to move to the coast, city or a quaint village with great WIFI!
With virtual viewings and sellers filming themselves on their morning run around their village to entice prospective buyers, at the moment there’s no reason why you couldn’t move house during the pandemic.
Where to move and why?
Our working lives will likely never quite be the same. Employers are now realising that remote working is possible. People are actually productive, the company overheads could be lower and actually maybe employees will be happier.
Though there is an argument for getting everyone back to the office to support cafes and train companies. It’s also worth considering how much remote workers will boost otherwise quiet rural towns which before couldn’t compete with the cities.
With that comes the reassessment of our home and working environment. Maybe a cheaper home outside a city with a small study is preferable to a long commute and being stuck in the tube each day. I’m not sure any of us will look at a crowded carriage in the same way again!
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Who will move and who will stay?
Of course, a lot of this will apply to a certain age group. Young workers less likely to catch Covid-19 seriously; may have a more relaxed attitude to busy city living. They may still want to work in a hustling, bustling office with funky bars popping up on the corner of their street. I can’t blame them!
Whereas families might decide once and for all that they want to be more present in each other’s lives. They might trade having a great Italian restaurant close by, for country walks and being able to see their children for dinner. Pre-Covid my Husband was only ever ‘just’ home for bedtime and that was with being the first to leave the office.
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There is certainly some movement happening. Maybe all those years we’ve thought about leaving the rat race, coupled with the world stopping has made people think.
It can be done. Work can be completed in the most surprising places. Living IS as important as working. And it is possible to move during Covid. In fact, perhaps now it is the time to move before the world goes back to normal and we’ve missed our chance!
As a family, we have certainly been through this mental process for many years. However, the last 6 months have been the catalyst to get on with it.
Italy we’re on our way!