If you are in the process of relocating locally in your state or an interstate move, you may have a few questions about the moving process and what is an effective way to find good movers to help you. You might even wonder if hiring a company of movers is a good move option for you. How much should you pay? What questions should you ask movers? You can get answers to your mover and pack/move service questions in the insights this article offers.
What is your Previous Moving Experience?
Whether it’s your first time interstate moving or relocating a few miles, or you’ve had several moves, a few pointers and pieces of guidance could inform your move and help the move to go more smoothly. If you are planning interstate moves, you will need an American mover service or company of movers licensed to move interstate for miles and miles in the U.S. with a van or truck. If you are planning an international move, you will need the services of an international moving company.
Taking the Stress Out of Moving
The process of moving, whether international moves, cross country moving, an interstate move, or simply packing up and heading a few miles to the near by local town or up the street within the state can be a pretty stressful burden across the board. You will want to find ways to relieve this burden and ease your mind throughout the process as much as possible so that you remain composed and energized to finish the process and keep your belongings intact. These are all reasons why hiring the local best movers in your local residential or business area near you or in your state to help you pack or transport items, as opposed to simply renting a moving truck or specialty van, is a great idea.
Should You Hire Local Movers?
Our team of experienced, professional movers has put together a couple of helpful tips and insights that can show you how to find the perfect local movers or company of state-to-state movers for the move, not just a moving van or truck (as much as we love a good van or truck). First, we’d like to start off by saying that we highly recommend you hire local movers, especially if you are going to be packing and moving any sizeable amount of your home items and property (even if you are taking your household items to a location only a few miles away).
Downside of Help From Family and Friends
Moving (whether it is moving a couple miles within a city, from city to another near city, or interstate moving, cross country, and even international moves), is something that many will try to do on their own, specifically with the help of family members or friends that are willing to come over with their trucks. Many people consider a broker or renting a moving truck and doing everything without the service and help of professionals to save on the cost of moving. However, for those that have a sizable home that will require several people to help move all of the weight, it may be much better idea to find a home/residential professional moving company that can provide moving services for you with reasonable estimates.
Danger of Injury While Moving
One risk that is often associated with the weight of packing and moving, especially for anyone who is not a professional mover or company of movers, is the risk of injury from weight during the packing and moving process. Lifting the weight of a lot of heavy boxes of items into a van to transport can be highly damaging to the body if not done correctly and carefully. You also want to ensure you don’t try to carry too much additional weight at one time, as this could cost you. Professional movers are skilled and capable when it comes to lifting weight correctly and avoiding injury from the weight. Thus, a company of movers offers to remove the liability of anyone packing and moving with you being injured.
Responsibility for Lost or Damaged Belongings
Another downside of relying on your own home moving and packing abilities or the help of a few friends is you may be more likely to break something if any of you have not been packing and moving professionally. Having local professional movers with good estimates to transport your household items helps by putting the liability for lost or damaged home items on the moving company rather than on you and gives you the option to write complaints or see the company’s complaints from others ahead of time, so not only is there less likelihood that damage will occur, but you may also be able to replace anything you lose if an accident does occur with the moving company. To get a final, binding estimate on the price of the move can also give you reassurance that the home moving and packing won’t become more costly to you than expected.
Tips On Finding The Best Moving Company For Relocating Locally
Here are a few tips on how to locate these storage, packing, and moving businesses that specialize in relocating in a local area near you. You might be planning international moves, an American interstate move, a U.S. cross country move, or even a relocation near by just miles up the street. It is very important to do research on moving companies, pack and storage services, get estimates, and check out a moving company’s other services if you are going to move from your existing home or business to a new one near you, even if it’s just a few miles away within the state.
What is the Mover Evaluation Process?
You are only going to be looking at a few things when you are selecting one of these movers/storage businesses and the services each ones offers. First of all, you need to consider their track record. Make an inventory of your belongings and exactly where you pack each of them when you pack. You might need an inventory list to get back missing or stolen furniture and items in a worst case scenario when you go to un-pack. You will also want to gather additional information about the moving companies, especially as you come closer to choosing the local movers you will be moving with. Keeping track of movers’ insurance details, license information, estimates (including a binding estimate if possible), receipts, and anything else would be wise to do your research. This research involves looking at how long they have been in the commercial, home/residential, local, state, or even international moving industry (for local moves, try to focus on local movers specifically in your state or local area), and also what others have said about the storage/moving services, compare their estimates, and what they offer.
Review Moving Company Customer Testimonials
These come in the form of testimonials that customers have left for these companies that have provided them with this type of service. The movers and storage/moving companies that have the best feedback are going to be top contenders for the movers that you ultimately choose to help you with your packing and moving project, whether you move state to state or up the street. Be on the lookout for complaints from customers about the company’s services or reliability, and pay attention to what the complaints say about the company. You want to determine if you have really found an available, reputable moving company that offers good service or not. It can be good to compare the things customers say about different companies too.
Getting a Binding Estimate on Moving Service Cost
Second, get an estimate on the cost and pricing structure of all of the move/storage services that the company offers. Usually a company of movers offers these for free. Service quote or estimate prices for companies should reasonably compare with one another for moves, but the one that offers the lowest cost is the one that you should consider hiring when you are relocating in a local area. The move/storage quote or estimate is valuable when making a decision, because the estimate shows you how local movers’ methods compare, and which ones are more cost effective will become apparent if the available quote or estimate is detailed enough.
If you can get a binding estimate or quote, which guarantees the final cost of the move before you begin, is a great option you should ask to take. When you compare mover cost estimates, keep in mind that moving companies shouldn’t require you to pay a large deposit or upfront charges (a deposit shouldn’t be more than 20% of the total moving cost estimate or quote), even for interstate moves. If local or interstate moving companies or storage/movers ask that you pay a significant amount for a mover security deposit in their cost estimates, there may be reason to get suspicious of those broker or moving companies.
U.S. Department of Transportation Oversight
The U.S. Department of Transportation has a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which oversees interstate movers and issues a company’s DOT number (for licensing) to each moving company and broker it recognizes. Make sure your moving company is licensed and has this DOT number from the U.S. Department of Transportation as proof that they are able to move legally in the state or states you are packing and moving in with the broker or mover. A moving company or broker that is recognized by the Better Business Bureau or involved in the American Moving & Storage Association is also a promising sign of an American moving company in your state that you can trust to move you from state to state. Research on the mover company should clear up whether the available company and its services are legitimate, as a website with lines and lines of unclear, vague statements and no solid guarantees is a sign of an unrecognized mover company.
How To Save Money On Their Services
You can save quite a bit of money on the moving cost if you are going to be relocating locally, and it may only take you a few minutes to get offers. You can look for interstate or international moving discount offers that are currently being advertised on the web, or even in the local paper (be sure to read all the lines closely). These rates could be from available moving businesses that are actually just starting out in local or interstate moving. Other times, you may find seasons in which moving companies are simply offering additional discounts for a short period of time. Don’t wait until the final moment to ask to schedule your local movers, or their services and supplies may not be available when you need them and you could miss these cost-effective mover promotional offers.
Discounts on a Truck or Van for Moving
You might find a good discount for your cost estimates on renting an available moving truck or specialty van. While a moving truck or van can be a huge help in moving any amount of your property to a new location, we still recommend that you hire available professional movers to help with your move, particularly for interstate moves. An interstate move is a complicated and long process, and having local movers and home/residential move services to hire for the move relieves a significant burden that can stress you and your household out if you try to do the interstate move alone with your own non-specialty truck or van.
Hiring Storage from Moving Companies
If you have home items you’d rather not sell or donate, but you don’t want to move them with you at the moment (perhaps you are moving temporarily and plan to return after a time), then you might look into storage as an additional option. Many local movers with good cost estimates offer storage services and other moving services to suit your storage needs in every way they can, and you may even save money by combining the process of hiring both storage and transport for your household items.
Need Additional Help with Packing?
Some moving companies offer to help with packing as well as moving. Having help with packing can ensure your belongings and furniture items are less likely than ever to be damaged while you transport them (but make sure you keep a detailed inventory on all of your household items and property). If you are looking for an additional service to take out the stress of moving your home belongings and furniture items, a company’s packing service may be worth looking into (often a mover company charges less if you hire multiple services at once). You may even pay less when you ask for a combination of a company’s packing and moving services and supplies for your move.
Providing Moving Supplies
Some moving companies may offer supplies like boxes, crates, or packing materials to help with moving. It may be worth it to pay the additional cost and get these supplies if you waited till the final moment and haven’t stored up your own in time. You will want to ask for strong packing materials (especially boxes) to protect your home items while you transport them, and get decent offers on reliable moving supplies is well worth the cost.
Always Make Sure They Are Insured
The offers on moving from companies that you choose should be not only affordable, but the companies should also have good reputations for packing and moving merchandise and absolutely must have movers’ insurance. You can make sure that the moving company you’re hiring is insured by seeing their movers’ insurance company and/or policy on their website and verifying that they are indeed insured by this company. The U.S. Department of Transportation has included providing this insurance coverage information as part of the regulations for American local and interstate moving companies.
Call to Verify Insurance with Interstate Movers
Alternatively, you can call them up to ask, and once you have verified information about their movers’ insurance coverage, you can feel more confident about the services that they offer. If you have expensive items in your home that will cost a significant amount of money to replace, this additional insurance coverage is absolutely crucial, so don’t neglect to ask the company what it offers before you hire the company’s services! Get a binding estimate on services you plan to hire if possible.
Filing Insurance Claims
In the event that your valuable home belongings are damaged or go missing, you will need to file a claim to have it replaced or compensated for. Make sure you ask and hang on to the movers’ insurance information for your moving company, kept your receipts, and any other information you may need. Usually, for customers who are hiring a valid, reputable American moving company with movers’ insurance coverage, this process should not be too difficult to go through, though receiving money for damage claims and disputed charges may take weeks to months.
Avoiding the Not So Best Movers
If you can find one of these moving and packing businesses that has an estimate with great prices for their moving services, and excellent hover reputation, and movers’ insurance, this is a great option for you to hire. Don’t hire a mover company or broker that seems to have excessively low rates in their estimate for no good reason, because they may be missing something critical like movers’ insurance or even license for moving. However, a good moving company or storage service that customers can rely on to hire should be affordable in their cost estimates.
Get a Written Estimate
Sometimes, a moving company may offer a great price in a price estimate before you move your home, but you find by the end of the process that the cost has significantly gone up from what the estimate said for one reason or another. It is wise to get a written estimate that details the costs of the move and hourly rates of the company of professional movers you’ll be working with so that you know in advance exactly how much everything is supposed to cost. You can also get this estimate to hold your moving company to the initially promised cost of their service.
Ready to Get Moving?
Relocating in a local area doesn’t have to be difficult. If you can pay for it, it’s better to get a professional moving company that can do all of this for you efficiently, more so than relying on a truck or van. Get this service to spare you the probability of injuring yourself, or even damaging the merchandise that you have if you are not a professional mover. Thorough company research can be completed at home in a very short period of time, and it is always better to do this long in advance before you have to move, especially state-to-state. That way, you can get to schedule your moving company to come on the day that you need to move, and the company will be available.
A Top-Rated Local Mover in Arizona
If you live or are moving in the Phoenix area, Dose Moving Companies Phoenix is a local moving company with a fantastic reputation for our commercial and residential moving services. Our Arizona clients trust our experienced movers and love working with us. We are here to help you with the moving process, whether you’re moving your home or business, or moving a short or long distance. Leave the burden of moving to the pros! Our company of movers would love to come and lighten the load, and we look forward to meeting and working with you. Contact us today, get a free estimate on your move, and get details on our company and residential moving services available in your state.
References & Sources:
American Moving & Storage Association. https://www.promover2.org/
Better Business Bureau. https://www.bbb.org/
Cassidy’s Moving & Storage Ltd. Where, When, And How Do I Start Packing? https://wemovetheworld.com/blog/packing-tips-getting-started/
Consumer Reports. How to Choose a Reliable Moving Company. https://www.consumerreports.org/moving/how-to-choose-a-reliable-moving-company/
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/
Life Storage Blog. Read This Before Moving to Phoenix. https://www.lifestorage.com/blog/moving/moving-to-phoenix/
Moving. 11 Cheap Ways to Move Cross Country https://www.moving.com/tips/cheap-ways-to-move-cross-country/
Ramsey. How Much Does It Cost to Move? https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-move
Square Foot Blog. 10 Must-Have Packing and Moving Supplies and How to Use Them. https://www.sparefoot.com/self-storage/blog/17325-10-must-have-packing-supplies/
U.S. Department of Transportation. https://www.transportation.gov/
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