Moving NYC to Dallas- mover recommendations for smaller loads

[Alkonost]

Originally Posted by reed303

Are you aware that you can load a ReloCube at ABF's terminal ?? You can have them make the arrangements, or hire your own local crew with truck. They have terminals in Brooklyn and Paterson NJ, plus others in NYC area. BTW ReloCubes are smaller than PODS.

If you want to use a traditional van line co. like Bekins, or United, fine, but they have minimum charges that may surprise you if you have not already got any estimates. For help selecting a co. , some reading here might help. Moving Company Advice: How to Find a Reputable Moving Company

Either way, good luck with move.

Yes I am aware, but I haven't gotten quotes yet to compare prices. Thanks for your advice, it does have me second guessing a few things.

While I plan on hiring people to move the items for me, it doesn't mean I'm not interested in being cost-conscious so if anyone knows if the pods/cube would still work out to be cheaper even if I have to hire movers to take my belongings to and from the pod/cube facilities I'd love to hear about that.

On first glance the pods/cubes seem great if you are moving from an actual home with a private driveway to another home with a driveway- but with dense urban areas or apartment complexes it looks like it gets complicated with being able to secure an area in front of your apartment building to load and unload. It makes me wonder how much you'd save using the cube when one needs to hire local movers to get their items to and from the pod or relocube in the first place. I'm moving to an apartment complex with covered parking, something which might still make it difficult to drop a pod or relocube there because of height clearance (and I'd have to check the apartment's policy on pod/relocube drop-offs on the premises). I'll chat with the apartment management and find out.

I'm curious about the minimum charges for the full-service moving companies, I haven't gotten any quotes yet, but whenever I read about people using them it's usually those with a substantial amount of belongings being shipped costing around $7k or more. Since I'm only shipping a modest amount of things with no furniture except a bed, my mental ballpark was around $3-4k. If I'm way off, feel free to let me know. This is my first major move so I don't know what the going rates are. I will probably be inviting moving companies to give me estimates over the next month or so. It's always good to have a heads up if my expectations are out of whack.

[UNC4Me]

Check out uShip. You post what you need moved and movers going to that location bid on your business. Typically you can find a mover with a less than full load who is willing to add your stuff to the load at a reasonable price.

Good Luck!

[Alkonost]

I'm almost done moving into my new place and wanted to report back in case other NYers in Manhattan have the same dilemma as I did.

White glove movers were quoting me at a minimum of $5,000 for a move to TX, even for my small, modest amount of stuff (other than a queen bed, no furniture, just boxes of books, electronics, and kitchen equipment). That price was coming close to the replacement value of all my things. Shipping wasn't an option for me for a million reasons I'm not going to get into here.

Due to the fact that NYC parking rules forbid leaving freight cubes on the streets in front of my apartment building I was too quick to discount POD and ABF Relocube.

In the end I took reed303's advice when they said you can load the relocube up at the terminal and don't necessarily need to have the cube dropped off if we could hire movers to pack the cube. After calling for quotes and crunching the numbers, this is exactly what I wound up doing.

I looked into hiring a small local moving company (Get It There Movers- who were excellent by the way and I recommend them anyone moving in the NYC area). Paying the movers to schlep my crap from my apartment to the Brooklyn relocube terminal, combined with the cost of the relocube (with drop off to my new apartment in Dallas) was just a hair over $2,100. Honestly, the movers + the relocube were the most stress-free part of the relocation.

Everything in the relocube made it intact and unbroken, this includes fragile breakables like my workstation, printer, giant HD TV, crystal glassware and an antique china set. First I must emphasize that I was anal-retentive about packing and padding things properly in strong doc boxes, so the contents could withstand a good amount of shaking, bumps and shifting from the freight trip. The cube was packed tight with heavy, sturdy items on the bottom and lighter/fragile items on top. Things did shift a lot, and it looked like the contents of the cube had a tough ride to TX, but nothing in any container was broken. Word of advice: be careful opening that relocube when you receive it, I almost got smacked in the head by a teetering box that had shifted.

I would recommend ABF's relocube to anyone doing a small move, but you must be diligent in your packing and padding techniques to ensure that nothing gets broken/scratched/shattered from being bounced around on the back of a freight truck. Staple's doc boxes are great, they're VERY strong and if you tape the lids down they can take a lot of abuse even when stacked high. I had some container store plastic bins that cracked (luckily nothing inside broke) holding half the weight that the boxes did.

We had to cab it out to the ABF brooklyn terminal (note to those without a car: not easy to get to by public transit). The cube we got was very clean and could very well have been new. It was easy to pack and lock, and the cube even arrived a day ahead of the estimate. Since we only had once cube, the ABF worker who dropped the cube off also helped us unload the contents into the garage (earning him a nice tip).