What to do first after moving into your new home
Deep Cleaning
It's a whole lot easier to clean the home when it's not full of furniture and other stuff. Sometimes you can ask the seller to pay for this prior to closing, if it's important to you.
Forward your mail from USPS
Update your driver's license
In the state of Texas you're allotted 90 days, but it's best not to wait.
File for your homestead exemption
The homestead exemption caps the maximum increase in value for your property year-over-year to 10% (or less, depending on specific county). Where exactly you will do this depends on your county but Travis county portal is linked below:
Here's also a Realty Austin blog post for more details.
Deferred maintenance/inspection items
Most likely there were several deferred maintenance items on your inspection report. This is a good place to start. Don't spend all your free cash on new granite countertops and then find out your dishwasher needs replacement.
Change HVAC filters. Start documenting filter changes, both for personal interests as well as resale (a well-documented maintenance schedule will improve resale value and buyer confidence).
Back up documents
Make copies of all of the documents of your transaction. Whether physical or digital. Make a copy and share them with friends/family off-site, in case of fire. Back them up on a cloud Drive. These documents can be very important, and can costs you hundreds or thousands of dollars if lost.
Replace door locks
It's very possible the previous homeowner still has keys to the home, whether intentional or otherwise. While it's unlikely they would ever use them, it's best to replace them. It's very inexpensive, and sometimes can be DIY'd with certain locks.
Also this is a good time to reinforce the strike plate. Most of the time, I am of the opinion that "locks keep honest people honest". However, most homes come with a pitiful strike plate that can be kicked through by a child. The strike plates are fairly small and the screws are very short. A high security strike plate like the one linked below (no affiliate link) costs ~$10 and will hopefully buy you at least a few seconds if someone tries to break in while you're at home. These are much larger and come with 6" screws that dig all the way into the door frame.
Defiant
Get an energy audit
A great way to save money is to have a professional come out and audit the energy efficiency of your home, and advise you on how to improve it. They'll provide a wide array of options, some very inexpensive and others far more expensive, but will pay for themselves in the long run.
Some common recommendations include:
- adding new attic insulation & reflective barrier
- replace all incandescent light bulbs with modern efficient LED bulbs to reduce energy consumption and waste heat
- seal air ducts (check for leaks or holes in ducts)
- seal around doors
- replace original single-pane windows with modern efficient double pane windows
Locate water and electric shutoffs for safety
If there ever ends up being a water leak, or an electrical fire, you need to be able to quickly shut off the source.
For electrical, this means identifying the location of the breaker box. There may be a main panel, and also a subpanel(s) that the main panel feeds into. Typically these will also have one larger breaker at the top that will cut all power to the entire box, so you don't have to figure out which one powers the particular appliance you're experiencing problems with.