Formal Housewarming Wishes

A formal new-home note sounds like a contradiction until you count how many of these cards are actually written at work. Somebody in your department has moved, a card is going round, and you have met them twice. That is the common case, and warmth from a near-stranger reads worse here than measure does.

It is also the register for a move the job asked for. Relocating for a role, or setting up in another country, is a considerable thing to ask of a household, and a note that acknowledges the size of it lands better than one that treats it as good news alone.

What every message here avoids is the property. No price, no area, no comment on the ladder or the market. That is conversation between friends and it is presumptuous from anyone else — and it also means each of these works for a rental, a downsize, or a move whose circumstances you were never told.

Where it is wrong: someone whose search you followed through every near-miss. There the specific thing is worth more than the register, and the heartfelt set has room for it.