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How to choose a mover
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Congratulations! You’ve found a great new place to live. Whether you are a first time homeowner, a twelfth time homeowner or even a renter, you all face the same problem…getting your belongings from your old place to your new one.
Moving is stressful. We all know that. It’s also exhausting and can be expensive. Unless you can talk Star Trek producers into letting Scottie beam up your furniture, you are either going to have to do it yourself or hire someone. There are several steps you can take to make the process a little easier.
Evaluate your situation. If you live in an apartment and are relatively young and in good shape with a friend or two that can help out, go ahead, rent a truck, especially if you are moving locally. You can find some pretty good deals with local truck rental agencies, but you will also need to add the cost of materials rentals, such as ramps, dollies, moving blankets and straps. If you are moving out of state, it’s not a method I highly recommend. If your truck breaks down, it might take several hours for a replacement and you will need to transfer everything from the broken truck to the new truck yourself. When you factor in the cost of gas and hotel rooms, it starts to eat into the savings. On the upside, you always know where your belongings are and you know that they will arrive at the same time as you.
Of course, you can always hire a mover. The advantage to hiring a mover is that they do all the heavy lifting. They can even pack for you, at a price. Choosing a mover can be a little daunting. Like most industries, there are honest movers and dishonest movers. A little education goes a long way in helping to weed out the good from the bad.
- Get referrals, your real estate agent is a good place to start. Even a referral doesn’t guarantee that all of, or even most of the company’s customers are happy, so check them out with the Better Business Bureau. Unless they are a huge company, more than three complaints within a three year period should be a red flag.
- If you are looking on the internet, only call locally based companies and stay away from those sites where you plug in your information to get a quote. It sounds quick and easy, but you will get hounded by phone calls and emails. You will get companies from around the country, some of them brokers and not the actual mover, giving you quotes from across the spectrum. Despite the temptation to jump at the cheapest one, don’t! There is absolutely no way that one company can do the move for much cheaper than everyone else. They are either flat out lying or they are leaving something out. Unfortunately, on the internet, it’s very difficult to tell which it is.
- Have a realistic budget. A tiny one bedroom apartment will cost at least $400 to move locally, and that’s if you have every single item in your apartment packed, including pictures, lamps and TV sets. Some movers also require that mattresses be packed. It costs a little extra, but for sanitary reasons, it’s an excellent idea. Homes can cost from $1,000 to $3,000 and more, depending on the size of the home. If you would like to have the mover pack for you, you can expect the cost to double, but that will include the cost of packing materials, which you would be purchasing (or scrounging) anyway. Out of state moves cost considerably more.
- Settle on three movers that you feel comfortable with, and have them come to your home. Ask them to give you a guaranteed price. Most movers in Colorado do not give guaranteed prices for local moves, but be sure to get a very clear picture of their charges. Local movers might charge by time or by piece. Moves out of state will be priced by weight and distance. If a mover is telling you that your move will take significantly less time or that you have significantly less weight than another mover, stay away. Movers aren’t magicians. No one can work that much faster and they are not going to put your furniture on a diet. Reputable movers are typically within 10% of each other’s estimates. Do not choose a mover that charges extra for tape used in wrapping furniture, wall or carpet protection. They sound like nickel and dime items, but at the end of the day, they can add up to many unanticipated dollars. You will need to ask them to spell out these details, because many won’t tell you upfront.
- If you are moving out of state, make sure that your mover is licensed and a member of the American Moving and Storage Association. While neither guarantees that the mover is good, it does say that they are not flying underneath the radar of the federal government. The American Moving and Storage Association also has a mediation program in case you have problems that can’t be resolved with the mover.
- Call your state’s Department of Transportation office to find out if a mover is licensed locally.
A couple of new options have come on to the scene within the last few years. I’m sure you’ve seen the metal storage containers, sometimes called PODS, parked in front of people’s houses. Sometimes they are used for storage and sometimes they are moved with a flatbed truck. You would need to load the storage containers yourself. The company usually gives you a few days. They are relatively easy to load because they sit directly on the ground. After they are loaded, the company will pick them up and either take them to their facility to store or move them to your new location, depending on your needs. They can be convenient, but the savings over a full service mover isn’t as big as you’d think. The real downside is that many homeowner associations don’t allow the containers to be parked overnight. Check your rules.
The other option is similar to storage containers. It’s called u-pack. A company will drop a small trailer in front of your home and give you three days to pack and load it. After the three days, they will pick it up and move it. You will be charged by the amount of space you take up in the trailer, so pack tightly. Neither the storage containers or the u-pack options offer much in the way of insurance, so if you have valuable things, a full service mover might be the better way to go.
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