You’ve officially bought a house! You’ve signed all of the paperwork and the housekeys are firmly in your hands. After the whirlwind of house hunting, bidding wars and contract signing, you might be at a loss about what to do next. 

What steps should you take now? 

Increase Your Home Security

You may have just received the keys, but you shouldn’t use them for too long. One of the first steps that you should take after buying a house is changing the locks. You don’t know whether anyone has a spare key in their possession. This could mean a stranger has unlimited access to your new home. 

You don’t want to deal with a potential home invasion. So, change the locks for all of your exterior doors as soon as possible. If the house uses electronic door locks, you should update the passcode right away. 

Do not hide any of your spare keys outside. Do not stick them underneath flowerpots or welcome mats. Do not put them inside the mailbox or above the doorframe. If someone finds your hiding spot, there’s nothing stopping them from entering your home. If you’re worried about accidentally locking yourself out of your brand-new home, you should keep a spare key inside of a secure lockbox. 

What are some other simple things that you can do to increase the security of your new home?

• Put up curtains and blinds inside the house right away. 
• Install motion-sensor lighting outside.
• Lock windows.
• Install a home security system. 

Make the Home Safer

Before you move in, you’ll want to do a general safety check. 

Check the smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors on every floor. If you want to be extra careful, you can replace the batteries in these alarms to guarantee that they’re fully powered and ready for emergencies.  

Check your water supply valve. This is essential knowledge for plumbing emergencies. Your water supply valve will let you temporarily cut off your home’s water supply. You might need to do this when there is a burst pipe or an overflowing fixture. 

Check your home’s circuit breaker panel. If the panel switches are not labeled, you should take some time to figure out the areas the switches connect to and label them yourself. 

Finally, you’ll want to add some safety essentials to your new home. Put fire extinguishers and fire blankets on every floor. Tuck a first aid kit in a bathroom cabinet. Assemble an emergency kit and add it to an accessible closet. 

Do Test Runs

It’s likely that everything in your new home is running just fine, but you’ll want to double-check to confirm this. You don’t want to move in and realize that something needs fixing already. 

So, do some test runs right away. Start with the lights. Flick on the light switches for every room to see whether they work. At the very least, you might need to replace some light bulbs.

Test the water fixtures. Feel the water pressure and temperature. You might need to adjust your water heater, especially if the water is running really hot. Scalding can be a hazard when there are young children in the house. 

Does your home come with appliances? Test them out. Run a load of dishes in the dishwasher. Cook a simple meal with the oven. Throw a load of towels in the washing machine and then the dryer. You’ll want to determine whether you should keep these appliances or get replacements.

Determine Your Moving Needs

How much stuff do you need to move into your new home? And how far are you traveling? These answers will determine your moving needs in the near future.

If you’re living a few minutes away from your new home, you might not even need to rent a moving van for a whole day. You can drive over most of your belongings on your own and then use a moving van to get your biggest, heaviest items into the house.

What if you’re moving a lot of items and your new home is far away? In that case, you might want to consider a shipping container for moving purposes. A shipping container can be secured to a truck and delivered to your newest destination, as long as there is plenty of space to offload it. A shipping container is very spacious — after all, it’s designed to carry a lot of cargo over long distances. You could fit moving boxes, furniture, electronics and even vehicles inside of one. 

What would you do with the shipping container, then? You could keep it. Shipping containers can make for convenient storage units for seasonal and outdoor items that won’t fit inside your new house. You can also convert a shipping container into a building that matches your needs. It could be a guest house, a hobby workshop, a home office or an outdoor games room. 

Clean Everything

Before you bring in boxes of your belongings, you should take some time to clean your new home. The rooms will be empty and clear, which should make clean-up quick and easy. If it’s within your budget, you could hire a professional cleaning service to tackle this job — or at the very least, part of the job — for you. 

Don’t get ahead of yourself. There are plenty of things that you should do before you pack up your clothes into cardboard boxes and bring them into your new home. Follow these steps first!