ᐅ Long-Distance Domestic Move – How to Find a Moving Company?

kati1337 schrieb:

Good grief, that’s a lot of wood. You really have to consider selling or clearing out all of our IKEA furniture through local classifieds and then driving to IKEA in person, and transporting the rest with one or two trips using a cargo van.
Because we don’t currently have any really high-end furniture. It’s mostly IKEA. And for $10,000, I could basically furnish myself anew. 🤨

All I can say is what friends who recently emigrated did. They only took the absolute essentials with them and bought new furniture there. All the quotes they received were so expensive that you could, for example, just buy everything new at IKEA. They sold or gave away the old stuff and sorted the rest for the garbage. Their move was about 1400 km (870 miles) within Europe. The personnel costs alone were just too high. They now have a driver from a company who transports the small truck with their belongings there and then drives back with their car. Using a team with one or two trucks would have been far too expensive.

Winniefred schrieb:

All I can say is what friends who are currently moving abroad are doing. They only take the absolute essentials with them and buy everything new once they arrive. All the quotes they got were so expensive that it made more sense to just buy new items at places like Ikea. They sold or gave away their old stuff. The rest was sorted for disposal. Their move was about 1400 km (870 miles) within Europe. Hiring personnel was simply too expensive. They now have a driver from a company who transports their belongings in a small truck and brings the car back. Hiring a team with one or two trucks would have been far too costly.

Yes, that’s exactly how I feel right now. It seems like I’d be paying $6000 to have someone drive my $80 Ikea dresser down there. Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to my nice old Hemnes furniture and buy some new Hemnes pieces once I’m there.

Maybe a home buyer also takes over some things that already fit well........

kati1337 schrieb:

Yes, that’s how I see it right now. It feels like I’m paying 6000€ just for people to move my 80€ IKEA dresser downstairs.
Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to my nice, old Hemnes furniture and buy new Hemnes pieces for downstairs.

You should definitely contact the company I emailed you about. You probably have more stuff than we do, but it would be really surprising if you end up paying more than 3000 euros. We only moved in November, so I can’t believe their prices have increased that much since then. If you get a quote, you can always decide what to do next.

It probably also depends on how much notice you have. We briefly considered throwing things away and buying new ones. But apart from environmental reasons, some furniture at IKEA was out of stock for months, and we couldn’t live without a couch for three months after moving into the new place.

We also weren’t really up for a Craigslist (or local classifieds) adventure these days. We did buy some furniture secondhand for child number two after the move, but it wasn’t exactly cheap either, since we had to rent a van and spend several weekends driving across half of Bavaria to pick it up (and most of the time we had to disassemble the furniture on-site first, which with larger pieces like wardrobes or changing tables isn’t done in ten minutes, and then reassemble it at home).

Moving companies in Berlin have also been struggling for a few years now. It used to feel like people moved once a year in Berlin, but now everyone clings to their old rental contract, whether the apartment suits them or not. It surprises me a bit that they are now even taking jobs in completely different locations...

Tolentino schrieb:

Always form a chain with non-professionals (something professionals don’t do), this saves an incredible amount of effort, especially when it involves multiple floors.

I think that’s a myth 🙂
As an amateur who has personally gone through more than 10 extensive moves, whenever I see a chain of movers like that, I really don’t feel like being a helper at all. Playing a link in the chain is the most pointless and annoying task during a move 🙂